


Oasis

by Yve



Category: Rune Factory, Rune Factory 4
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Dune Setting, Dune Factory, F/M, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 50,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4902622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yve/pseuds/Yve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frey, an Atreides spy sent to infiltrate Rabban's regime on Arakis shortly before Duke Leito brought his family to Dune, crashes her thopter in a storm after being discovered and pursued by Harkonnen agents. Lost in the desert in one of Arakis' famously deadly storms, she stumbles into a nearby cave and an unlikely meeting...</p><div class="center">
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	1. The Sentinal

**Author's Note:**

> Okay this is so bonkers, but [FFG](http://fandomfanficsgalore.tumblr.com/post/130148992408) is hosting another RF fic contest and the theme is AUS aaaaand... I just finished reading Dune so this is probably the most out-of-left-field crossover ever, but have some DUNE FACTORY [lmao]:
> 
> Edit: Aaaand now I have more ideas so this thing is now a multi-chapter pile of shenanigans.
> 
> Edit 2: Added a portrait of Fremen!Bado I painted as a sort of cover piece for this. :)

Wind howled its wrath all around Frey as she feebly struggled to discover which way was up; savage Arakian wind heavily laden with tiny blades of sand that bit at the exposed skin of her cheeks between the breathing mask of her shoddy smuggler-made stillsuit. Barely able to balance on her hands and knees in the face of the oncoming gale, she tumbled again, further down the face of the dune into which her thopter had plummeted as soon as the sudden storm brought it down. Through the thick-headedness that was her lot after the impact of the crash, she struggled toward a rocky formation not ten yards distant; the only thing likely to save her as she crawled on her belly to this scant shelter. The storm built its rage yet higher and the angry hissing of the sand committing its abrasive deconstruction of her cloak and suit chased her into the rocks as she panted loudly in her own ears behind the mask.

Upon reaching the rock outcropping, Frey’s sigh of relief became a gasp as she slipped again and tumbled through a hidden opening half concealed by sand and sprawled in an exhausted heap of limbs within a little cave that burrowed beneath the rocks. For a long moment or two all she could do was pant and lay there, biding her way through the pain of her sudden acquaintance with the rock floor. But, the sand no longer chewed at her through her clothing; no longer bit at her cheeks, already pink and raw after only a few moments’ exposure to the earliest part of the storm.

Gingerly, she propped herself up on shaky elbows and dragged herself to an upright position. This cave was deeper than she would have guessed. Around a corner she could already see where it turned and twisted, an ideal refuge from the storm above where no biting sand wind could reach. She staggered to her feet with a hissing grimace of pain. Broken rib or two, at the least, she thought. Then, leaning on the rock wall for support, she limped into the deeper reaches of the cave and stilled.

A glow globe of soft golden light illuminated a wider chamber around the second turn of the path. Her mouth grew even drier than the desert had already made it as she rapidly looked around chamber, not daring to breathe. There were cloth hangings upon the walls in rich colors of burgundy, tan, gold, black, and faint blue lines of shimmering thread. Supplies lay piled in a corner; captured Harkonnen weapons and clothing, message tubes, cruel-looking steel knives, and a torn banner of Rabban’s hated regime. A bedroll even contrived to complete the picture, the barest comfort imaginable, but it struck terror into the heart of the Atreides spy as she held her breath. Her eyes darted around the room again and again, searching for a figure lurking in the dim light, camouflaged against the rock wall or behind one of the fabric hangings… but there was no one. Presently she swallowed and allowed her burning lungs a gulp of air. This damnable day… after being chased into a sandstorm by Harkonnen scum and barely surviving the subsequent crash, the absolute  _last_  thing she needed was—

“Don’t move.” A deep, dangerous voice boomed behind her and her heart stopped for what felt like an eternity as realization struck her. “My knife is at your back already. You are lost in more ways than one, offworlder.” Frey swallowed again and waited for the point of the knife to sink into her flesh. By all accounts, these people did not take prisoners; only the water in their flesh…

Three… four… five breaths passed and no piercing pain announced itself from behind her. Perhaps he was not one of them after all… a smuggler, maybe? Regardless… if he was hesitating to end her life, she had a chance…

With no more warning than a hissing intake of breath Frey twisted around and kicked savagely at the right knee of her assailant and sprang away toward the captured pile of weapons and supplies against the wall. She snatched up a black steel knife and bore it between her and the man with a snarl like a cornered animal… which is what she felt she was in this moment. He, for his part, showed no fear, no urgency, no particular annoyance at the blow, but merely shifted his weight so as not to injure the joint as he let the force of her kick whip down the leg. Then he straightened and locked eyes with her and she froze as the fear returned, crawling rapidly up her spine.

Blue within blue.

The eyes of the man staring out at her from between his hood and stillsuit mask bore no whites; only the spice-blue of—

“Fremen!” She gasped.

He huffed a monosyllabic laugh and shifted his weight again. Rather than the posture of a battle stance, he assumed a casual, bored attitude, appearing as if he thought her rather slow, but couldn’t work up the interest to be annoyed about any of it.

“You’re right to fear us.” He said, affecting total ambivalence—or was it an affectation? Frey dared not assume anything in the presence of one of the Arakian natives. The people of the desert gave new, extreme levels of meaning to the word ‘secretive’ but what little she knew made her blood run cold. He flicked his wrist, tipping the knife in his hand twice in her direction without urgency. Only now as she looked down his frame to the knife hand did she notice that this man was a giant, and the knife a long, white bone cruelly carved into a hungry blade. “You’ve seen my kris knife. Your water is mine now.” He said calmly. She glared fearfully and tried to keep the shaking from her voice as she spoke her reply.

“Then why do I yet draw breath? You had me on the point of your knife long enough to kill me many times over. Why do you play with me?” He stared with cold fascination at her, the terribly blue eyes calculating; what, she did not know. Finally he spoke again.

“You know what we do to trespassers?”

“Yes.” She said somewhat breathlessly, but not without as much savagery as she could put into her voice “But now that you’ve hesitated you’ll have to fight for my water.”

“You know it is nothing personal…” He said in a half-grumbling tone.

“No less the impact to me.” She replied coldly. He sighed and reached his left arm up and up. Her knife point followed it suspiciously, but no flying poisoned dart or other trickery followed. Instead, the stranger swept the hood off his head, pulled out the nose plugs and peeled aside the mask of his stillsuit. Dark, untidy hair covered his head and crept down in a short curtain around his jawline, making points over his chin and the corners of his jaw. He had a long nose matching the bony, angular look of his face, but another feature altogether sent her thoughts stumbling. Surely this Fremen was a killer… so how could he have smile lines around his mouth, or crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes? Frey said nothing, the scathing insult on her tongue dying off in the face of this incomprehensible move on the part of her attacker.

“This thing must happen. It is the way.” He said calmly, never sheathing the white fang knife. Then, he smiled and shrugged. “But, it can wait until morning. Shai Hulud has cornered us both together in this place with his storm. Perhaps he meant me to meet you.” Frey remained silent, noting despite the suddenly placid manner of the giant man that he was still plainly promising to kill her. He watched her, blinking intermittently with no sign of aggression for several minutes before he sank to the floor and sat cross-legged, placing his kris knife on the stone floor of the cave just before him, his back to the only exit. “Sit down. You needn’t crouch all night.”

At his words, Frey realized her injured legs and ribs were screaming at her with pain, but she could not show such a thing to this man. Slowly, feigning a leery reluctance, she shifted into a kneeling position, one foot still braced on the ground for now. He made no move, but relaxed into a lazy posture, his hands braced on the rock floor behind him as he leaned back.

“So…” He said in his deep voice after a few more minutes of silence. “What is your name?” Her eyes narrowed.

“Does it matter if you’re just going to kill me in a few hours?” She growled. He shrugged.

“If it did not matter, I would not have asked.” He said reasonably, “I already know it is not Harkonnen. You don’t stink of their treachery. And, you are like an infant out here. You will not survive the desert even if I let you go, so I can’t very well waste your water when my tribe could have it.” There was no malice in the voice, which only puzzled Frey all the more.

“I’m  _not_  Harkonnen, you’re right.” She spat with venom in her voice upon the name. The bearded Fremen raised his dark eyebrows over his blue, blue eyes. Interest glimmered there. He raised a hand to his own chest over the gray sheen of his Fremen stillsuit.

“I am called Bado.” He said calmly, then gestured to her again slowly. “What is your name, fierce little offworlder? It’s plain you are the enemy of my enemy. So let us be friends until I must take your water.”

‘ _Some kind of friendship…’_ Thought Frey bitterly. But, her chances of survival were greater the longer he was not pointing that white knife at her throat, so she made the decision to play along.

“I belong to Atreides.” She said boldly, “My name is Frey.” He blinked and the corner of his mouth twitched in a little hint of a smile.

“Frey, huh?” He reached up and tugged at the point of his beard thoughtfully. “Your eyes are the color that Arakis must inherit.” She blinked her emerald green eyes uncertainly. “That is Liet’s will.” He added cryptically. A flicker of memory from the vantage point of the airborne thopter made her eyelids blink rapidly a moment or two.

“The oases?” She murmured with cautious curiosity. He nodded. “You’re… planting?” Her eyes widened and he smiled mildly.

“It is a lot of work…” He sighed, “As you may have noticed, our world is not a gentle place for plants to grow. I must be a fool to volunteer for this post.” Frey glanced around the cavern again.

“It’s just you out here?”

“In this place, yes. I am the sentinel of this outpost; the caretaker of this oasis.” She blinked at him, suddenly sure she was approaching understanding.

“Must be lonely.” She hazarded. One side of his mouth pulled into a half-smile and he chuckled.

“You suppose correctly.”

“And this is why I still have my water, is that not so?” Bado shrugged, not admitting the fact, but not denying it either. Then he resumed blinking placidly at her, making no move to take up the knife sitting before him. She stared at the man, thinking rapidly of every possible strategy of how she might escape this. He smiled again, watching her eyes flicker with her fervent thoughts.

“Why are your eyes that color?” He asked offhandedly. “Do you come from a place that is green?”

Frey nodded slowly. “Caladan.” She said slowly. He stroked his beard again.

“Aah, very different from here isn’t it?” He said thoughtfully. “Plants grow easy, eh?”

“Yes…” Frey said, gradually easing into a more relaxed sitting posture. If she had to bolt and make a break for it closer to dawn, she may as well rest her weary legs now while he was keen to talk. “I had a farm there. We grew many plants. Plants for eating, mostly.” He narrowed his eyes at her and she tensed, unsure of the reaction.

“Do you think…” He said slowly, making her swallow with nervous anticipation again, “You could tell me how you grow them in more detail?” She blinked in surprise. “I already know all the tricks of the desert, but maybe if I knew something from a place where a person could have eyes the color of the plants, I would grow the best oasis. And then, I could sell the seeds from the best Oasis to the other sentinels.” He grinned, plucking at a gold ring braided into a strand of cloth in the vicinity of his collar. She frowned, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“But if the knowledge is what made them grow, why would the seeds be more valuable?” She asked cautiously, calling out the hole in his scheme. His wolfish grin widened and he shrugged.

“I will sell them ‘seeds from the best oasis’, not ‘seeds that grow the best oasis’.” Frey snorted in spite of the still looming peril, shaking her head at the man.

“You are a coyote.” She admonished. He raised his eyebrows, waiting patiently for explanation. She gestured with a hand at him and obliged. “A sly creature of the desert who wields what he knows and what others do not. A trickster. You’re bound to the letter of a contract, not the spirit of it.” Bado grinned, his crow’s feet crinkling around his Fremen-blue eyes and chuckled.

“Still, my tongue does not lie.” He said. “And it will harm no one. They need seeds anyhow.” Frey rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“And so as my last act I should become co-conspirator with you, coyote?” She smiled wryly. “No, Atreides go to death with honor.”

“Aah…” He hummed contemplatively. “So, what you know must be valuable if you’ll carry it to the grave, eh?” She furrowed her brow at him, uncertain of the intention behind the sly tone.

“Integrity I will carry to the grave, stranger.” She answered grimly. He scoffed.

“We are not strangers now, Frey. I know your name and you know mine. You know my home and you’ve told me of yours.” He waved a hand dismissively as he said this, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “What I am asking is: Could you buy your life’s water with this gift?” She stared at him, mind racing to follow his meaning. Was he offering her an out?

“…You tell me.” She said slowly after a long pause. “How highly do you value a green thumb?”

“Your thumbs are green, too?” He returned quizzically. She blinked and a surprised laugh made a bid to escape her dry throat, making her cough. The tension of the moment had been rent by this comical inquiry.

“A figure of speech…” She muttered, still choking a little. “I mean, how much do you value botanical knowledge?” He leaned back again and looked up thoughtfully.

“With Liet’s plan still so early in its making…” he trailed off, furrowing his brow as he considered the question. “…It is hard to judge.” He said finally, shaking his head. Then he looked up at her with a sly, mischievous expression. “The thing would have to be  _proven_.” Frey leaned back in the face of this change in demeanor, uncertain.

Without explanation, Bado casually picked up the knife before him and got to his feet. Frey shot up to a fighting crouch, her legs and ribs screaming their defiance still, but she dared not show her injuries. Her eyes followed the knife as he lifted it and then pointed it in her direction once more.

“I have already said this once: Your water is mine, Frey. One way or another. You would not survive the journey from here to any place habitable to an offworlder.” Her eyes hardened as he spoke of possessing her water again. But suddenly and with casual certainly, he snicked the knife into its sheathe and smiled mischievously at her again. “So, stay. I can keep you breathing and you can help me with the oasis. By the time any of the others know I let you live, you’ll have proved your worth tenfold, right?” he grinned a defiant little flash of teeth and her heart suddenly jumped. _How_  could she have fallen from the sky onto the very doorstep of the one Fremen on Arakis who would offer her such a deal instead of killing her on sight? And maybe, just maybe, the taking of such a deal would win her escape someday in the future. She’d been forced to make much worse, and much harder decisions in her life, to be sure. All the same, it was difficult to believe this strange truce was a real offer and not some frantic wish of her frightened imagination.

She stared silently at him for a long moment, then slowly straightened into a relaxed, if still a little pained, standing position. She reached out her knife arm and dropped the thing back onto the pile of captured weapons. Then, she turned her green gaze back to his blue within blue one.

“Perhaps we were meant to meet after all, Bado.” She said with measured thoughtfulness, adding finally: “I’ll stay.”

 


	2. The Prison of Survival

Frey woke by way of pain greeting her with the morning. She groaned softly and gradually began moving her bruised, scraped, and tired limbs bit by bit until she was a bit more stretched out, rather than folded up into a defensive bundle of limbs in a corner against the wall. She let out a long, labored breath as she waited for the pain in her now stiffened ribs to yield. Once she had a grip on the pain, She blinked once or twice, furrowing her brow.

Where the hell was she? She looked about her, eyes flicking to and fro, taking in the interior of a cave with small tapestry upon the walls, a glow globe's illumination and-

Frey gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, remembrance suddenly flooding back into her. Not three feet away the huge figure of the tall Fremen man called Bado lay sleeping upon the bedroll she'd noted before he'd pressed his knife to her back the previous day. She waited, not daring to move or breath, cursing her heartbeat for the suddenly loud rhythm it pounded out in the stillness.

The man's chest rose and fell slowly and he snored quietly through the breathing mask of his Fremen stillsuit, but he did not stir. Slowly, Frey believed him to be sleeping and silently got to her feet, slowly picking her way across the cave on tiptoe, never turning her back to the man, before scrambling up the burrow entrance of the cave and out. The harsh radiance of the sun fairly slapped her as she crawled out onto the desert surface of rock and sand. She panted with the effort and the shock.

Daylight? She had fully expected the cover of night to veil her escape. Why was the big man sleeping in the day? Unless he wasn't sleeping, she thought. A fresh spike of panic lanced up her backbone and she jumped to her feet and sprinted away from the rocky outcropping, heading vaguely north, where she had flown from before her thopter plummeted to the ground. Pain made her breath ragged in her lungs and her gate was unsteady as she limped along as fast as she could.

Who knew whether the blue-eyed man had spoken true when he said she couldn't reach anyplace from here on foot, but she had to try. For one thing, it was only a matter of time before he tried to kill her, seeking the wealth of the water inside her blood and tissues. And in the meantime... she did not want to think too hard about what ulterior motives he had for keeping a captive woman alive, when he knew he must kill her soon. If she would die on his knife either way, she did not intend to entertain him before she did.

Just as she was trying to shake off these forboding thoughts, Frey became suddenly puzzled at the sound of her breath. She'd been panting great gulps of air in hissing gasps all the time she'd been running, but the hissing had gradually grown louder as she went. She stopped and looked around. The rocky outcrop where the Fremen man's cave near the sparse green of the planted oasis was small in the distance, a few hundred yards away already.

As she swept her gaze around, she realized the hissing did not match her breath at all. Finally her eyes found the direction of the sound and her mouth fell open in horror. on the empty, expansive horizon of the desert, a strange shape grew ever larger. A wave of sand, curling up and away from a moving mound in its center, flowed through the ocean of sparkling sand toward her.

"Worm!" She gasped, eyes wide with sudden terror. She looked around her frantically again, hoping to see a mountain or a rocky island in this sea of sand, something she could take shelter on. But all that stood above the dunes was the place she'd come from.

She bolted, pouring out as much of her energy as she could despite the pain, knowing she could never outrun the thing, but guided all the same by a fatalistic part of her that wanted to die free, rather than the prisoner or plaything of a lone desert man with a knife at her throat.

The hissing approach of the sand worm grew yet louder in a crescendo of rasping desert substrate, then the sound buckled for a beat as the gaping maw of the creature broke the surface.  
Frey's footsteps slowed, her knees trembling, and breath burning in her lungs. the diameter of the worms jawless mouth was more than enough to swallow her whole. Not the largest of specimens by any stretch of the imagination, but big enough to be her end, just the same. She sank to her knees on the sand as it surged toward her, panting. It would be here in less than two minutes, judging by how rapidly the form of it grew larger in her field of vision.

Two minutes to live... just about a hundred seconds to consider her life and how she'd come to this... to die in the middle of nowhere alone, down the gullet of a marauding, spice-devouring monster without conscience or pity. At least the worm would not torture her first... One bite and done. Better than falling into the hands of a Harkonnen or going back to that man and his bone-white knife...

Frey sighed and slouched a little lower as she watched the worm's steady progress toward her.

Then it changed.

Her brows furrowed in distant confusion as the gigantic beast twitched and corrected it's course slightly, beginning to steer its barge-sized body just to the right of her, rather than on a direct intercept course with her tiny person. She frowned in puzzlement and another sound pulled her attention and her head around to the right.

Sprinting footsteps pelted toward her, long in stride, and heavy in weight. She turned and with a flicker of disgusted resignation recognized the tall Fremen man's silhouette charging toward her.

"He doesn't want to lose the water..." She thought bitterly. "He'll go as far as to try and snatch me from the jaws of a worm just to get it? Well... I only hope the monster swallows us both." She clenched her teeth in frustration and impotent anger as she watched the man approach until she could see his dark brows low and furious over his blue, blue eyes.

in a sudden, half-frantic fumbling in a pouch tied at his waist beneath the cloak whipping out behind him as he ran, the man drew out a strange oblong something and changed his pace, drawing his burly arm back and swinging it in a powerful arc combined with the momentum of his churning legs. The whatever it was flew from his outstretched hand and hurtled through the air, tumbling end over end until it thunked into the ground maybe sixty yards off to the northwest.

Already dim and slow in her acceptance of death, Frey blinked at it, a glimmer of curiosity calling with a little voice from the distant past when she cared about such things.

'lump. lump. lump. lump.' A new sound, low, steady, rhythmic, and mesmerizing pulsed in her through the ground on which she stood. somehow the weird beat was just as loud as if it were in her own head, resonating through the small bones deep in her ears. She squinted in the direction of the thing, forgetting the man who threw it and the worm that threatened to engulf them both until he slid to a stop on his knees, scooped her up unceremoniously in his big arms and stood perfectly still, watching the worm, and breathing hard.

Frey pushed feebly against his chest and shoulder with her arms but he gripped her tightly to him and her strength was already spent. He did not speak, did not even look at her, only glared unblinking in the direction of the worm with its wake of sand spilling out on either side of it.

The gigantic creature slowed for a breath or two, and then with a rumbling, hissing sound, both rasping and resonant, it changed course again, rolling upon the long axis of it's cylindrical body, ring segments shifting and twisting over one another as it went. it curled to Frey's left as she watched it, aiming the huge cavernous mouth full of cruel white teeth each as long as her forearm toward the sound of the thing now embedded in the sand.

'lump. lump. lump. lump. lump. lump.'

On and on the rhythm went, but Bado did not wait to see the worm reach the decoy. He turned around and tossed Frey over his shoulder like a piece of baggage. She protested weakly, flinging half-uttered words of malice and insult at him, but it all came out rather incoherent. Exhaustion had her just as much at its mercy as the desert man did. There wasn't a thing she could do about it.

Silently Frey bit her lip and fought back tears of frustration and self-pity, barely sparing a thought for her aching body until she noticed something peculiar about the way she knocked against the Fremen's shoulder blades with each step.

'Step... slide...step step...hop...step.......slide.....hop hop step...hop.' The big man made steady progress back toward his bleak little home, away from the worm, but he did so in a manner almost like an utterly graceless dance, devoid of recognizable pattern or rhythm. His feet darted, skipped, hopped, plodded, and stomped in random order and combination over the sand and dirt, sometimes pausing for a breath or two, sometimes scraping over the surface, but never repeating any of the recent sounds of his passage.

Again that distant curiosity tugged at her consciousness. A passable alternative to anticipating what he'll do to me when he gets me back to his damnable little hole in the ground, she thought bitterly by way of justifying the sudden interest kindling in her mind. None if it mattered, anyway. Each moment was as ten as Frey's sense of forboding mounted ever higher.

She lifted her head, gripping the man's cloak and pushing at him to gain leverage, and looked back toward the horizon, vaguely hoping his trick would fail and the worm would be rushing toward them to swallow up the little spy and her captor whole... but it was gone.

The machine rhythm of the thing Bado had thrown had been silenced, but the worm was also nowhere to be found, not even by the telltale wake of sand that marked its passage. Just as she was growing a little more mystified by the ease with which the giant worms could travel through the shifting particles of the ground on this planet, a sudden drop startled a yelp from her raw, weary throat as Bado slid down into the cavern opening of his hidden home among the rocks.

He paced wordlessly to the back of the cavern where his bedroll lay and dumped his charge upon it with a squeak of surprise as she hit the slight padding between her and the rock floor. Then he pulled off his stillsuit mask and seethed with anger.

"What a stubborn creature I have been burdened with!" He boomed incredulously, gesturing at her with frustration in his posture. "You would really rather go to Shai Hulud, than stay here, alive, with me?"

Frey finished cringing through the pain of impact and jerked her head up to glare at the man, growling through gritted teeth.

"Then kill me! What in all the stars are you waiting for?!" The big, blue-eyed man flinched at her words as if she'd pricked him with a thorn, his mouth frowning more tightly and his eerie eyes widening. He pointed an accusing finger at her.

"You said you would stay!" He barked. "You said you would go to death with integrity! I said I would keep you alive, you little offworld sneak! We had a deal!" Frey narrowed her eyes at him in confusion. There was actual hurt in the deep voice as he bellowed at her. Actual betrayal and shock colored his words. He had really taken her at face value...

"You said you'd take my water. You'll kill me sooner or later. What kind of deal is that?" She panted quietly, glaring at him from where she lay, limp and exhausted on the pitiable excuse for a bed he slept upon in this horrible little rock hovel. He frowned yet more sternly, considering her silently for a time where she lay helpless before him.

Without fear, anger, or much of any feeling, Frey wondered vaguely if he would draw his knife and pull it across her throat now and get it over with. He stepped closer and loomed over her, clenching and unclenching his fists. Then he knelt.

"I told you you could not reach any place from here on foot, Frey." His voice was quiet and calmer now. She blinked at the use of her name. "I was not lying."

"Yeah... I get it now." She murmured indignantly.

"Why would you run into the mouth of a maker rather than stay here and survive?"

"As a prisoner?" She shook her head slightly. "It doesn't matter... I'm doomed either way." She rolled onto her back and turned her head away from him, still panting quietly. He moved, and in a heartbeat he was on top of her, hands and knees astride her smaller figure and that long face with the blue, blue eyes glaring down at her.

"I'm not finished speaking with you." He growled dangerously. She flinched into a warding gesture, knowing full well there was nothing she could do to defend herself now... Hell, her pathetic struggling would probably only give the man sport along the way.

"I know you look down on me, even from your tiny height." The big man rumbled as Frey stared wide-eyed, and fearful up at him, her knees drawn up between her body and his. "It's not new, I assure you. You consider death preferable to life out here in the desert? What arrogance!" He pushed off the ground with his hands and loomed up on his knees above her, still frowning disapproval. "You think you know so much? Death would teach you nothing. I see that now."

He stood up and gestured down at her disdainfully. "Look at you, water-gorged offworlder! The desert makes us strong. You have none of its blessings, none of its strength. This place is my home, Frey. It is not a prison. Your weakness is your prison."

Frey's eyes widened as she heard the terrible truth of the words. Somehow these Fremen could come and go as they please, unmolested even by the great sand worms. This remote desert hellhole was no threat to the man standing over her. With or without him and his kris knife to menace her, She'd be trapped here by the mere necessity of survival; the fact she couldn't accomplish it on her own.

She surrendered. Her body went limp and her eyes half-lidded as she stared, unfocused up at the man, then her face bent into a cringe and every muscle in her seemed to tighten and strain with the sudden agony of despair. A sob escaped her throat through her clenched teeth and her eyes watered.

"Stop." He said firmly, and to her surprise, Frey stilled, the tears ebbing before they spilled over her eyelids. "You've wasted enough of your water and mine, today. The deep voice was quiet, calm, and without anger now. Surely it was only her despairing state of mind, hoping for some small mercy, but she thought she could hear a note of sympathy in his tone. Impossible.

She waited in silence, utterly limp and motionless save for her breathing, eyes directed vaguely at the tall man without seeing him in detail. As much as a minute passed this way before his shoulders slumped. He sighed.

"You are the most lost creature I have ever seen." He said quietly, then knelt down again, beside her this time. His big hands found their way beneath her knees and the back of her neck and scooped her up, pulling her against his chest as he sat back and deposited her weight across his lap, still cradled in his arms which he folded before him, holding one wrist with the other hand and leaning elbows on his knees. In this way he wrapped her up in the space between his carefully arranged limbs and sat there in silence, apparently oblivious to the flabbergasted, wide-eyed expression on the petit woman's face. But, presently he glanced down at her face, blinked, and looked off into unseen distances again.

"I am sorry for you, Frey." He murmured quietly. "Sorry that you struggle so." She stared and blinked at him alternately for a time before whispering:

"Why?"

He shrugged, never releasing his hold on her, his grip gentle but firm.

"I don't know. The desert does not pity. The Fremen do not pity. Shai Hulud does not pity. I am strange in this land, though not nearly as strange as you." As his tone shifted from contemplative to amused, Frey felt a twinge of guilt, all the more stinging for the unexpectedness of it.

"I'm... sorry." She whispered, "...for going back on my word." He glanced down at her again, but said nothing. She swallowed around the dryness in her throat that had never left her since she arrived on this desolate planet. "Thank you, Bado... for saving me from the worm." His blue eyes flicked down to her green ones and held there for a time.

"You're welcome..." His basso voice rumbled softly in reply.

 


	3. A Worthwhile Burden

 

"You need to rest." Bado growled from where he sat on the stone floor, sifting through a pile of cloth scraps and other spoils from trespassers into Fremen territory. He glanced at Frey where she sat, arms wrapped about her knees on his bedroll.

"It's daylight." She said, eyes flicking briefly to where a couple thin little shafts of sunlight crept down into the cavern from some small ventilation holes in the rock.

"I know." He returned. "Even the little mouse, Muad'dib, knows better than to waste his water under the heat of midday." He found a patch of slick, gray material that closely matched that of his stillsuit and set it aside with a satisfied little noise of approval. Then he glanced up at her and frowned. "Lie down." He rumbled.

Frey didn't move. Just like the fear that had taken root in her heart didn't move. Even though he'd scooped her up and held her after the flight from the worm, that didn't mean she had nothing to fear from him. She may have fallen asleep between midnight and just after dawn that morning while the waited through the storm, sheer exhaustion and trauma driving consciousness from her mind while he lay sleeping not a sword stroke away, but that didn't mean it had been smart or safe to do so. And, as soon as he'd begun to insist she should lie down and sleep this afternoon, her suspicions were so badly roused that she hardly could have slept if she even wanted to. It wasn't as though she could do much more against him waking than sleeping if he decided to do as she feared he would, but somehow it felt safer not to present such a defenseless picture. And that meant no sleeping. At least not lying down...

Bado sighed and frowned more sternly at her.

"You have lost a great deal of water, between the crash, your little run this morning, and your ignorance of the ways." He complained, "You must rest and conserve your water as much as you can for the time being. That rag you are wearing won't help much, either. You need a real stillsuit." She said nothing, staring at him over her knees. He huffed an impatient noise, set aside the fabric in his hands, and stood up. She twitched at the movement and he quirked an eyebrow at her, still frowning. He paced over to her and squatted down suddenly, crouching beside her. She flinched and scrambled away from him until her back bumped against the cave wall. She glared fiercely at him, putting every bit of aggression she could into her hardened eyes, hoping it would be enough.

He looked puzzled and annoyed.

"What are you so afraid of?" He asked in tones of frustration. Then some flicker of recognition passed through his expression and his gaze traveled down her figure and back up again quickly. Her eyes narrowed and she tensed, ready to fight if she had to. Even knowing she wouldn't win any physical conflict with him in her battered and exhausted condition now, she had no intention of submitting tamely to a man's hunger. And just maybe, if she made enough difficulty he'd conclude it wasn't worth it. He didn't seem the type to be in it for the fight or domination, after all.

The desert man scowled at her and spoke in harsh disapproving tones.

"What exactly do you suspect me of, Frey?" He rumbled. She bared her teeth and answered his question with another.

"Why exactly do you want me to sleep so badly?" She hissed. He rolled his eyes and made a disgusted sound, standing up and glaring over his shoulder at her.

"Who do you think would lie with you and give you his water, huh? You'd only waste such a gift. You know less than the least of Fremen children about water discipline and you have no respect, offworlder." He stalked away from her and sat down heavily with his back to her, turning his attention again to the pile of scraps and growling, more calmly:

"Besides... A man does not take a woman without that she wish him to. Not a true Fremen man, anyway." Frey blinked at his back and felt a surprising and preposterous guilt, all of a sudden. Why she should care that she had offended or insulted a man who'd begun their first conversation by pressing a knife to her backbone, she couldn't have said, but just the same, she was thoroughly cowed by his words. She relaxed her limbs onto the stone floor and sighed. A silence of several minutes passed before she finally spoke.

"I'm sorry." She mumbled. "I've never been captive before but I know others who have. I've heard what was done to them, especially the women." He paused his movements and glanced over his shoulder at her. She looked down at her legs, feeling the bruises to them beneath the paler gray fabric of her own stillsuit.

"I swear to you I will not harm you as you sleep, Frey. I swear by Shai Hulud and the Great Mother, and anything else you care to name. If I were to take your water it would be in a stand up fight that would not be a surprise to you. That is the way." She blinked at him and rocked forward onto her hands and knees, making her way to the bedroll and lowering herself onto her side upon the meager comfort the thing offered. He looked over his shoulder at her again and cracked a faint little smile.

"Good girl." He said, quiet, but approvingly, too. "Sleep and rest and after sundown I'll give you something to eat." She laid her head down and blinked at him slowly, exhaustion reaching up with grasping hands to pull her into unconsciousness just as soon as the effort of keeping herself upright was released. She tried to say something but found she could not bring her tongue and lips to articulate any intelligible response, just now. Black oblivion smothered her, dreamless and deep as the night sky.

***

Frey twitched awake some time later and slowly stretched out her stiff body. She sat up and looked around her, feeling refreshed but empty in her stomach. She hadn't eaten since yesterday morning and her body seemed to remember even before her mind that the desert man had promised her food. She saw no sign of the big man, hardly likely to be hiding in such a small space, but as though he heard her wondering thoughts he dropped into view from the sloped entrance of the cavern and pulled off his stillsuit mask before greeting her.

"Good evening, Frey. How do you feel?" He inquired with a mild smile on his lips. "Hungry?" She nodded, feeling disinclined to speak and on top of that not knowing what to say. "Thought so." He replied, and came over to her. He knelt down and produced from a satchel on his belt something about the size of a plum and wrapped in leaves. It smelled almost like cinnamon but earthier, and Frey recognized the odor of the spice immediately. A riper, more urgent pang of hunger hit her and she lifted a hand to take the little leaf parcel. Bado's big hand tightened around it and he gave her a warning look as she glanced up at him.

"Eat it slowly, or you'll choke. I have nothing to give you to drink." She nodded and he looked satisfied and deposited the thing into her waiting hands. She unwrapped it and her mouth watered, despite the dryness of her throat as she inhaled more of the smell. Inside the parcel was a mixture of herbs and spice honey with two mouthfuls of white meat like poultry and some pieces of roasted root vegetable. She plucked up a piece of it and delivered it into her own mouth, chewing rapidly until she caught the man watching her making a frown and she slowed herself down with a mustering of will and conscious effort until his face relaxed again. She swallowed and sighed out her relief before taking another bite. She'd heard it said that hunger makes the best sauce for any entree but never had it rung truer than this moment.

"You like it?" He ventured, his tone turning light and amused. It sounded much more natural to his deep voice than the menacing, growling tones he'd levied at her over the last twenty four hours. She nodded, unable to keep the corner of her mouth from quirking into a slight smile in spite of her. He grinned, and began unwrapping his own meal and eating it, sitting across from her as though they were at a holiday picnic, rather than in a desolate desert outpost, walking the tightrope between survival and death at the hands of the merciless desert.

Frey finished eating every scrap of the little meal and licked the traces of honey and spice from the leaf wrapping and all her fingers. Bado smiled at her again once he'd swallowed the last of his. He looked so genuinely pleased that Frey stared at him in confusion.

"What?" She ventured warily.

"You're kind of cute, when you're not pointing a knife at me, running away, attracting worms or glaring at me from across the room." He mused, tugging on the point of his beard and grinning. Frey flushed red and glared at him, unable even to splutter an indignant reply beyond a wordless grunt of incredulous anger. He threw his head back and laughed, one hand folded over his middle as he let out his mirth. She scowled and pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her arms around them again. He finished his laugh and smiled at her again. "Cute when you sleep, too." He added, to her even greater humiliation and red-faced resentment. He chuckled and leaned back until he was fully reclined on the stone floor, hands folded behind his head. Frey's eyes followed him and her curiosity won out over her embarrassed resentment.

"Hey..." She ventured quietly. He looked up at her, waiting for whatever she would ask. "Why are you helping me? I can't imagine it's good practice to feed and look after someone who's a dead weight who wastes water." He smirked, and shrugged.

"For your 'green thumbs', remember?" He replied airily. She frowned.

"I come from a climate as different as it can be to this place." She said slowly, "And you already said you know all the tricks of the desert. What I know probably won't help you." Her heart began to beat faster as she spoke, but she was so certain this fact had not escaped his notice, it hardly seemed a disadvantage to admit it. Bado only shrugged.

"Well, green thumbs or no, I could use another pair of hands." he said with the attitude of someone casually offering supposition. She frowned at him still.

"Why are you alone out here?" She asked slowly, cautiously, "Wouldn't it be safer to have someone here with you?"

"Probably." He replied casually, giving no sign he intended to elaborate. She shook her head.

"How is your oasis, then?" She asked, changing tactics. "Everything growing okay?"

His expression turned thoughtful as he considered the question.

"Need to put out more dew collectors." He muttered, as if reminding himself, rather than telling her. Then he looked up at her face again. "You can help me. It will be good for you to move around a little. Don't want those ribs getting too stiff."

"How did you-" She began, startled, and broke off again as she noticed him smirking.

"You talk in your sleep." He replied, eyebrows raised.

"I do not!" She returned, affronted. He laughed again and sat up.

"C'mon." He said, beckoning her. "I'll show you the plants." She followed him, first with her eyes and then with the whole of her, climbing up out of the cavern partway before he hoisted her by a big firm hand clasping her smaller, more slender one. Frey got to her feet and looked up before a little gasp escaped her throat.

Night had transformed the desert landscape into a sparkling sea of blue and silver and black, sand glittering under twin moonlight and stars twinkling above, mirroring each other. The dunes rose and fell above the lower surface of sand, painting graceful curves with their crests and slopes, caressing her eyes with their silent, temporal beauty. Even as she watched they were changing shape, the wind sculpting them out of the desert sand like an artist, patient and steady in the manifestation of her vision.

"It's... so different." She murmured. Bado glanced at her sidelong. He was smiling still, maybe even more now. She blinked several times and looked away from him. "I... only just arrived and hadn't been so far out before yesterday. I've never seen the desert at night like this."

"Hmm." he mused, "Maybe you can learn to appreciate Arakis." And with that he began walking away down the nearest slope, the opposite direction from where she had run earlier that day. She followed, tripping as she lost herself gazing upward again. He caught her before she managed to fall and go tumbling down the slope of the dune and hoisted her back to her feet with his big hands under her arms.

"You are such trouble, Frey." He laughed, tickled rather than irritated by the fact. She frowned in confusion but said nothing. What could be said, anyway? The more certain she gradually became that he was not about to cut her throat, the less certain of the man she became, paradoxically. Why on earth should he be delighted by the clumsy, hazardous risk she represented out here where survival hinged on strict discipline and well-practiced procedures of conservation and stealth? Suddenly she became aware that he was looking back at her as she stared at him and she flushed and looked away again. He smirked and gestured, drawing her gaze and pointing it out over a small garden of green, fleshy desert plants, succulent and spiny and gleaming silvery under the moonlight.

Frey drew in an awed breath and looked between him and the plants twice, her mouth open in a little 'oh' of wonder. It surprised her as much as it appeared to please him. She puzzled for a moment, brow furrowed. Having come from a planet so abundant in water and plant life that one was far more likely to die of drowning than of thirst, she could not at first explain why the sight of a spotty covering of desert succulents and cacti should inspire any significant feeling in her. But, she supposed, having come to Arakis to work and having spent absolutely no time consciously considering plant life since she arrived, she must have grown accustomed enough to the barren nature of the place that even this shocked her into vivid tactile memory of foliage, bark, wood, root, and twig.

She walked slowly forward, dazed, and knelt down by the nearest of the plants, something like an aloe, with long triangular leaves, thickly fleshed and waxy on their surface, reaching up and out of the ground like tiny upraised fins. Bado knelt beside her, head turned and watching her carefully, eyes not sparing one minute for the plants.

"I...forgot, I guess." She mumbled disjointedly, bending over and carefully tracing one of the leaves with a fingertip, feeling the cool surface and swallowing with heavy realization. "I forgot what it's like to see things growing like this... green." Her eyes burned but she forced tears down without mercy. She would not impel him to scold her now, in this moment. His eyes dropped down to her fingertips and the plant and he gave a quiet little "Ah..." in his deep voice.

"Homesick?" he murmured quietly beside her. She nodded, her throat too tight to do much else for the time being. She buried her face in her hands and breathed, still holding the tears at bay before they could form. Bado inched over to her and sat down, very close. Perhaps it was the cautious sympathy in his attitude, or the way he watched her so calm and quietly, but Frey did not flinch away now.

A breeze picked up, stirring the sand with a whisper around them. She shivered and withdrew her hand, wrapping her arms around herself and curling up a little more where she now sat, too.

"Cold at night..." She mumbled. "Didn't expect cold to be a problem here." He chuffed a tiny laugh and relaxed a little beside her. Then, as the warmth of his body so close to hers in the chilly night air began to register on her senses, her expression collapsed into fretfulness. His echoed it.

"Frey?" he called, so quietly, and so near. She gazed down at the little desert plant, nurtured by his own hands in this desolate wasteland of sand and scorching sun and freezing night.

"I am a burden to you." She said. He made no sound or movement. She continued: "I wouldn't survive without you looking after me and I've cost you much, already." She raised her head and turned to him, staring resolutely into his blue-within-blue eyes. "What I know of water-spoiled plants on other worlds will hardly be of help." She whispered, brows knitted together. He sighed and smiled and looked out over the little oasis, so small in the scope of the vast desert landscape.

"Yes. I know." He said, so soft and quiet that his deep voice was a gentle hum, barely audible but soothing and resonant, regardless. "Your company comes at a high price, little lost one." He added, still murmuring in that gentle voice, "But right now... I think it has been worth it." Frey stared at him while he looked out over the oasis, refusing to make eye contact for the moment. She swallowed, turned to gaze in the same direction as the man sitting beside her, and shifted slightly until she was just barely touching the outward side of his arm and shoulder with her own, the contact slight enough that it could easily be excused as an accident.

Very briefly she felt his eyes flick to their corners, looking at her as she determinedly did not look at him. Then he drew in a long, quiet breath, his chest expanding, pushing his arm against hers the slightest bit more in the space of that breath before he sighed it out slowly, wordlessly. Frey felt the tension in her neck relax a little. She swallowed quietly and continued staring out in front of them, her thoughts no longer dwelling on the plants, but turned inward now.

Yesterday morning as she crept about a Harkonnen outpost in disguise, would she ever have guessed the feelings of one solitary Fremen man would hold any weight for her? What was happening to her here in the middle of this not-quite empty desert?


	4. A Gradual Erosion

 

By the time Bado finally spoke again, the Arakian moons had made noticeable progress through the sparkling night sky, surrounded on all sides by twinkling stars. Frey hadn't moved for a while, despite the cold that had by now crept into her limbs to the bone, making them numb and slow when finally she began to stir at his words.

"I need to stake more dew collectors." He murmured quietly, as if reluctant to disturb the stillness. Then he turned and looked at her, face relaxed in the visible part of it above his stillsuit mask and the eyebrows ever so slightly inclined above those blue, blue eyes. "Will you help me?"

She blinked at him, lips parting unseen by him behind her own breathing mask.

"Sure..." She said very quietly. Then added, shrugging: "I said I would before, after all." He smiled an amused, knowing sort of smile in his eyes as he continued to look sidelong at her. Then, he got to his feet and reached a big, angular hand down to her. She glanced at it and back up at his face, then took the hand and let him pull her to her feet.

A dim, prickling sort of pain fluttered up and down her legs as she suddenly bore weight on the cold, numb limbs and she wobbled unsteadily. Bado reached out by reflex and gently grabbed hold of her shoulders to steady her. She flinched at his sudden movement and looked up at him, eyes wide. The smile slid from the corners of his eyes and he looked down at her with a fretful brow.

"You okay?" He inquired warily. She flushed and nodded, biting her lip and looking away from his face.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Just cold." She returned in quiet, short utterances. He nodded and released her shoulders slowly, as if he expected she would fall over as soon as he let go. When he was satisfied that she would most likely remain standing, he turned and beckoned her along with him over to a box made of dry, gray wood on the outside perimeter of the cluster of desert plants. She followed, watching him, their surroundings, and staring at the box alternately until they'd stopped in front of it.

A flicker of facial muscles implied his mouth tugging up in a half smile as he bent down and opened the cache and flipped off the lid so she could see its contents. She blinked and tilted her head in curious confusion as he lifted a long glassy tube up and held it out for her to see. It was a cloudy white with a glossy, hyper-smooth surface, about as long as her arm and hollow with one end tapering to a narrower tube shaped opening, giving the thing the appearance of a stake or a spike. She reached out a curious hand, the only part of her other than the top half of her head not obscured by the stillsuit, and hesitated a few inches from touching the thing. Bado gave a low, almost inaudible chuckle and stretched his arm out a little more, offering the object up to her touch encouragingly.

It was cold. Colder by far than the night air around them. So cold that her eyes widened and she snatched her hand back out of reflex before touching the thing again to confirm what she had felt. He smiled approvingly of her curious exploration of the thing, crows feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

"What is it?" She asked quietly as she noted the incredible smoothness of the surface, virtually frictionless.

"A dew collector." He supplied as though this gave clarity to the strange object. She looked up into his eyes, waiting for further explanation. When he gave none, she resorted to another question.

"What's it made of?" He tilted his head thoughtfully.

"I don't know what your people would call it, but to us it's known as Shira'danud. I guess you could say it translates to 'cold glass' but that doesn't sound very interesting, does it?" He shrugged.

"How does it work? What does this have to do with dew?" She asked. His eyes smiled again and he stood back up and beckoned her.

"I'll show you." He said, and walked over to the far side of the planted ground. She followed, noticing for the first time that there were many of the long, cloudy glass rods sticking out of the ground, each very close to a plant. He squatted down, elbows on his knees and gestured to one of the half-burried dew collectors.

"We push them into the ground near the plants. Shira'danud doesn't conduct heat very well at all, so it stays relatively cool during the day. It's also totally clear when it does warm, so sunlight shines through it when it does heat up a little and that keeps it from getting very hot, even on the worst days. At night once it cools down it gets cloudy again and it grows colder than rock. When the sun rises again, everything around the dew collector warms more quickly and the moisture in the air condenses onto it. Then, because the surface is so smooth, the water runs down it quickly to the ground where the plant can take it up."

Frey listened intently, eyes growing wide as she understood. The thing was simple enough but the precise and practical nature of the material and how expertly it was specialized to its purpose awed her. Nothing she'd uncovered about the Fremen in her intelligence gathering missions had suggested this level of crafting capability or scientific advancement. The simple elegance of the tool captivated her and she looked up into Bado's eyes with enough of her expression evident in hers that he grinned again behind his mask.

"More than you expected out of us, I gather." He said slyly. She looked away, blinking rapidly and embarrassed at having been read so easily.

"Not much of anything is known about Fremen by anyone other than your people themselves." She explained, not quite able to keep her voice from sounding defensive. He nodded knowingly.

"We certainly go to great lengths to keep it that way." He replied in a casual voice. Then he beckoned her again and handed her the dew collector, indicating the a nearby plant without one. "Well, time to earn your keep, little offworlder." She bent an eyebrow at him in half-hearted resentment and accepted the thing, stepping over to the plant and pressing the narrow end of the dew collector into the ground. She expected the substrate of Arakis to resist the intrusion, and so levered her slight weight over the thing and leaned down upon it hard. But the sand seemed to embrace the smooth surface instantly, so she actually fell forward with a yelp on top of it, cringing with embarrassment as the desert man laughed aloud at her.

Frey sat up and back on her heels, glowering at him wordlessly. He laughed a few more seconds and then leaned over, grasping what little of the dew collector still protruded from the ground and tugging it up until a good amount of surface area was exposed to the air.

"A little overzealous, aren't we?" He jibed. She looked away, glaring at a patch of sand and pebbles to her left, saying nothing. "C'mon. You'll stay warmer if you keep moving." He offered her his hand again and she reluctantly accepted it. He tugged her to her feet and led her back to the box where he hoisted a substantial armful of the dew collectors out and indicated the next plant. They strode over to it side by side and he wordlessly handed her another, balancing the weight of the rest in his other arm. She took it and pressed it easily into the ground, eyeing the others to be sure it looked properly installed. He nodded approvingly and they proceeded to the next plant.

"So," He ventured, "How did you come to be flying this far out in a thopter during a storm, Frey?" She blinked.

"How did you..." She began, then paused, thinking.

"I buried the pieces of it last night while you slept." He replied offhandedly, adding, "It's really no wonder you had trouble sleeping today, given how you slept away the night just before." Privately Frey considered flatly telling the man the reason why she 'had trouble' sleeping was out of fear that he would force himself on her as soon as she dropped her guard, but given his reaction to the notion earlier and the fragile truce of amicability between them now, she decided to keep the thought to herself. Instead she chose to answer his question, supposing since he could not be Harkonnen that it would be safe enough to do so.

"I came out here to discover the plans of the enemies of house Atreides. My duke is to come to Arakis with his family soon. The bloody Harkonnen have had plenty of time to lay a trap for him. I am one of several who were sent to scout the planet for such schemery." The she shrugged. "But I'm as good as dead now, as far as they are concerned. I have no way to inform my lord of anything regarding Harkonnen movements as long as I am stranded out here." Bado raised his eyebrows at this.

"Do you not have means to send messages?" He asked in disbelieving tones. She waved behind her shoulder inattentively.

"There was a radio in the thopter, long range telecommunications capable, but it was fried by the electrical charge in the storm before I went down. Likely nothing left of it even if you hadn't already buried it." She sighed. He looked befuddled at her.

"It seems rather strange that you should have the ability to go between worlds without a more reliable means of communication with your tribe." He muttered disapprovingly.

"Well, whatever I use must also be invisible to and untraceable by Harkonnen, so I cannot rely too heavily on toys, you know. They have access to the same technology we do." Then she looked up suddenly at him.

"Wait... are you saying you have the means to message outside this valley?" Her eyes grew wide, hopeful, and tense, but the desert man shook his head. "Only to other Fremen." He said, to her puzzlement.

"But if you have a radio..." She began, but he shook his head again.

"Not here." He explained, "They have equipment like that and even thopters at the Sietch, twenty three thumpers to the South, but here I have only little wings to carry word." She looked at him uncomprehendingly and he chuckled. "We train birds and bats to carry messages to and from places like the oases and the sietches."

"Then, how would you leave here if it's so far away? Are you stranded, too? Do other Fremen need to come get you for you to go anywhere?" She pressed, speaking quickly as the thought of a means in or out of this place excited her to bright-eyed urgency."

"I would mount a maker." He said simply. She bent her brow at him, trying to express her vexation and imply the need for elaboration, but he only smiled again and shook his head as if to say he'd already revealed enough to her. Frey drooped at the finality of his cryptic statement and looked away again. It took a few minutes of frusrated silence before she let go of the inquiry in her mind.

They proceeded around the oasis at an easy pace that gradually grew efficient, planting the dew collectors nestled among the plant to help ensure their survival. A small smile touched her mouth and eyes as Frey looked down at the fleshy little desert succulents reaching up to the sky from their humble station amid the loose, deficient soil of Dune.

Something about the simple task comforted her. Her hands pushing the rods into the sand would later provide water to these little life forms. She was helping something, albeit a small, unthinking thing, but a life form nonetheless. She was helping, she thought again with a little half-smile behind her breathing mask.

She did not yet consider herself completely out of danger here, however, so the notion of relaxing into the comforting feeling still set her hair on edge. The desert man had shown no determined interest in killing, raping, or maiming her, but her nerves still rattled a little at the idea of dropping her guard around him, even if she had already slept in his company twice now without waking up to a knife at her throat. He had, after all, said all those things about taking her water while he had her at knife point when they'd first met.

'Yes, just after he found you unexpectedly invading his home.' A little part of her shot back, injecting embarrassment and shame into her previously indignant and self righteous perception of the event. Anyone would anticipate a threat from a sudden intruder into the very place where they lived and slept, especially considering the little cavern was so well secreted among the rocks. He probably never expected any but a fellow Fremen to find the place. And hadn't she, after all, found it completely by accident? No, she could not blame him entirely for threatening her when first they met, not since he'd saved her, comforted her, fed her, and spoken to her in such a gentle voice this night. Frey frowned again at the sudden shift her mind had undergone in her perception of this Fremen stranger.

She shivered and extended a hand to him for the next rod. Nothing settled into her palm so she turned to him and looked up into the blue eyes of her strange new acquaintance. He showed her his empty hands and his eyes creased at the corners again.

"You became lost in the work, little one. We've already installed them all." She blinked mutely at him, swallowing uncertainly. As ludicrous as it seemed to believe in it, she could no longer deny the note of affection in his voice as he spoke to her. The way he followed her with his eyes and smiled, so quietly amused... The man was genuinely fascinated by his burdensome guest, and downright tickled to see her participating in his usual activities, or showing any interest at all in the unique aspects of Arakis only its own people knew.

"What's next?" She asked, and another shiver went through her. He reached out suddenly and grasped her hand, squeezing and releasing it repeatedly, making his way down the wrist a little ways and frowning.

"Next we get you inside and warmed up. I told you that rag of a stillsuit wouldn't help you much. You're missing some water and you'll become ill if your core body temperature drops. Not a good combination." He muttered ominously. She gulped, once again reminded by his constant awareness of the deadly necessity of watchful wariness of all matters concerning water for those who dwelled in this desert wasteland.

"Come." He commanded firmly and led her by the wrist back to the cave at a brisk pace. She stumbled along behind him, half forming the words of a question in her mouth several times, but each time it died on her tongue before she managed to utter it. She was still a bit too wrapped up in her disbelief to articulate her query yet, it seemed.

Once inside the cavern he tugged her over to the stone floor by the bedroll and pushed on her shoulders until she sat, watching his face and wondering what he intended. Again and again she reminded herself he'd had ample opportunity to do as she feared by now, and that they both knew there wasn't much of anything she could do to stop him if he decided to fulfill her fears. Even still, she couldn't quite shrug off the worry.

He sat down across from her and grabbed one of her ankles, apparently oblivious to the fact he almost toppled her onto her back as he pulled it out from her cross-legged posture and held it before him.

"H-hey!" She yelped, but he didn't seem to hear her. He tugged the laces of her boot into relaxed loops and pulled the thing from her little foot with a quick motion, still holding her slender ankle in the other hand. "What do you think you're doing?" She demanded, trying to pull her foot away but finding herself without leverage and his strength just as inexorable as she expected it to be.

The breathable fabric sock came off next. His blue eyes were fixed on the limb in his grasp, a kind of tunnel-vision focus taking him, so that he again failed to respond as she barked a little louder at him this time.

"Let go of my foot!" Still no response. Frustration replaced the fear and a little flash of fury overtook her mind. His hand was braced to counter without thinking the tugging she was doing to pull her foot back into her own control, so his grip didn't much soften the kick she pumped down her leg until her heel collided with his jaw, knocking his breathing mask askew and startling him into releasing her foot.

She drew her knees up to her chest and frowned indignantly at him, red in the face. He stared and blinked, wide-eyed at her and then his eyebrows quirked in hurt confusion. The expression was so undeniably sincere that Frey's anger evaporated instantly, though she still affected it as she spoke.

"What's gotten into you? Why are you grabbing my feet?" She demanded. He winced apologetically.

"Sorry. I was trying to warm them up. If you get too cold you might not wake up in the morning, you know." He glanced between her now naked foot and her face a couple more times, plainly trying to be patient though he wanted to proceed.

"Just... try to listen, okay?" She said warily. "You weren't responding. You scared me... Sorry for kicking you." She finished in a sheepish mutter and relaxed her balled-up posture so that her leg extended the foot toward his hands again. He hmmed a little chuckle behind closed lips and she assumed he was smirking behind the crooked mask.

"You didn't put much behind it." He mused, taking up her foot in the grip of one large hand and rolling up the leg of her stillsuit with the other, once he had loosened the ankle cuff. She twitched at the touch, but his brusque, efficient movements described only practical concern, rather than desire or seduction. "Must not hate me that much." He added in a light version of his deep voice. She flushed again, looking away with a pouting anger in her face.

The odd pair of them sat in silence for a time as he rubbed his calloused hands over her feet until the numbness was replaced by a tingling, prickling warmth that made her grimace. He eyed her face and fretted with his own brows.

"Try not to let it get so far, next time." He said quietly. "You really could get sick or die." Perhaps it was only her imagination, but his quick practical touch grew gentler and more careful, she was sure. She said nothing, but watched him almost continuously, dodging her gaze away if he glanced up at her eyes. After a time the prickling gave way to a dull throbbing and he moved to the other foot, apparently satisfied that the first limb was warm again. He repeated the process with the other foot, and both of her hands in turn, still wordlessly methodical throughout the process.

The desire to survive and keep her extremities intact was certainly of considerable motivation to Frey in this moment, but at least equal to such concerns was her curiosity. Over and over this enormous, solitary desert man defied her expectations and she found herself unable to resist waiting to see what he would show her next. Every time his voice slipped into a low, gentle rumble of exclusively intimate volume, or when his eyes crinkled with amusement as he looked at her she could not contain her bewildered desire to know. Yet each time the question rose up in her mind she swatted it back down, rebelling against the sense of embarrassment, shame and humiliation the adolescent girlish wondering kicked up like a noxious little cloud.

"Hey." He called quietly, a little laugh barely restrained behind his tongue, "What are you worrying about, now, Frey?" She shook her head and frowned, looking away from him at the wall again. He chuckled, then looked concerned again as she yawned and sagged a little closer to the ground.

"You're tired again." He murmured. "You normally sleep at night, don't you?" She nodded mutely. "Well..." He said thoughtfully. The fastest way to adapt would be to stay up until dawn and then sleep when you are very, very tired, but..." He trailed off and tugged at one of her still suit straps around her ankle, still considering. "I think we'd better not press our luck, for the time being. If you are tired, you should rest some more."

Thanking him inwardly for the chance to sleep again, she looked over her shoulder at the bedroll. She hugged her knees to her chest again, touching her feet with her hands and frowned. What if they got too cold again while she slept? She shivered, still feeling a vague sense of betrayal that the open desert she'd thought of as a scorching wasteland could be as cold as frozen water, despite how dry it was.

"You are still cold." Bado said quietly, looking resolutely at her eyes until she met his gaze, reluctant to agree with him out loud. He sighed with a sympathetic but resigned expression just shy of a smile in his eyes, then he grasped her feet one at a time again, replaced her socks, and coaxed her into reclining on the bedroll. Then, he stood up, walked to the other side of the room, unbuckled the belt that bore his kris knife and set it on the floor of the cave. When he next returned and sat down beside her again, very close, he'd removed his stillsuit mask, exposing the lines of his nose and lips, and the beard framing his jaw. She could feel the warmth of him again and an infuriatingly primal impulse to seek that warmth and huddle close to it flickered through her consciousness.

"Frey." He called in his quiet, deep voice, the gentle hum that was also speech. She met his eyes by way of acknowledgement. "I am not going to hurt you. I don't want to."

"I'm a trespasser in Fremen territory." She returned in an equally quiet voice, "You are supposed to kill me and take my water. You said, 'it is the way'. He looked down and chewed his lip a moment or two, then smiled slightly to himself, blinked and looked back up at her with an air of decision.

"Ways change." He said simply. Her eyes widened briefly. "My way this time is kindness, trespasser." He winked at her and grinned. She flushed red and blinked rapidly at him for a moment or two. Finally, cowed by a guilty feeling in her stomach, she admitted to herself the unlikelihood that he'd go so far down a diversion by helping her, given how much effort and water it probably cost him. She mimiced his gesture, peeling aside her own breathing mask and supposing inwardly that this showed some degree of trust. Then she leaned back on the roll of course fabric that he had for a pillow, eyes never leaving his face, expression never shifting from a bewildered determination and watchful waiting.

"Why?" She mouthed, barely giving breath to the inquiry. He diverted the question with another.

"Will you let me help you?" He asked softly. "I can help you keep warm. I won't hurt you, Frey." She swallowed, looking fretfully into the blue eyes and then tipping herself over the brink into the unknown territory that would be the result of indulging her curiosity. She nodded, simultaneously tensing in her limbs with apprehension. He exhaled softly and shifted close to her, the warmth of him overlapping with her body, now. She waited, holding her breath, but by the time he was done moving he'd arranged himself upon his side, curled partly about her and head at rest upon the rolled fabric. She swallowed and wriggled carefully closer to him, rationalizing it as being the best chance of surviving the cold desert night.

Her mind wasn't buying it. She could not make herself believe survival was her only motivation, now. Plus, there was that other part of her that timidly reached out and tasted the heat of the man beside her, the earthy scent of him, sweat and dust and spice mingled together with something else, less easily identified. The argument in her mind shifted this way and that in a tug of war, but eventually the fog of oncoming sleep weakened the rational part of her.

After all, wasn't it nice? This gentle strength, partially enveloping her... the reassurance of another living person showing a vested interest in her, who cared that she lived, who cared that she did not grow cold in the night? Surely this beats crawling about among enemies whom I know will flay me at first chance, she thought. Surely this beat the isolation and constant fear that her life as a spy had submerged her in up to now.

Yes... Her sleepy mind murmured to her as her eyelids began to droop. Yes, this was surely better. Perhaps she had died in the crash. After all it seemed so unlikely... a kind, gentle Fremen man wiling to stick his neck out to keep her whole and alive and unharmed? Might as well have said she found a flying pig that exhaled plump rainclouds, for all the plausibility it bore. Well, her sleepy brain considered, if this was the last dream of a dead woman, she might as well enjoy it.

She stirred, nestling closer against the big man, folding her arms against her chest and even uttering a small, satisfied sound when he went as far as to wrap a big arm around her and tug her against him more securely. She drifted, finally surrendering to the comfort of the warm body beside hers. There was something about being touched with kindness by another, of that physical contact granting reassurance, safety, and security. The fear and stress and pain faded from her mind and she slipped into dreaming, huddled close to the desert man she both feared and admired, and far too tired to wonder what the morning would bring.


	5. The Cruelty of Survival

The first thing that stirred Frey's consciousness again long after that black, exhausted sleep swept her under it's mantle was the return of hunger and the dull leftover ache in her ribs and limbs. Much as she would like to have forgotten the noise and chaos and impact of the crash that had brought her here only a couple days before, the state of her body would not allow such happy forgetfulness. She groaned and reached for something warm and solid... something that had been there before, she was sure. Her hands searched a moment longer before her eyes snapped open.

She sat upright, suddenly wary despite the sleep she still struggled to blink out of her eyes. Bit by bit the events of the days leading up to this one trickled back into her consciousness and she felt her cheeks grow hot. Had she really spent the night nestled close to the Fremen man, 'Bado'? What in the stars had she been thinking? She shook her head and rubbed at her eyes.

"Ah, finally woke up, eh?" The familiar-by-now deep voice of the very man she'd just named in her mind inquired from close by in the room. She twisted around to see him sitting cross-legged, hunched over a small sleek shape in the palm of his big hand. She blinked rapidly as she saw the thing twitch and move, then recognised it for what it was: a kestral. The shining dark eyes of the tiny bird of prey glared fiercely and it it clicked its beak menacingly as it spotted her starting at it. But, it's diminutive stature made the sound a tiny snapping that couldn't help but be a little cute. Frey felt the corner of her mouth turn up in a smile despite herself.

"You like animals, eh?" The desert man inquired. She glanced up and met his blue, blue eyes and nodded in a small gesture, wary. He frowned. "Do you forget everything when you first wake up, Frey?" Came an impatient query. Frey bent her brow and stared, uncomprehending but suspicious. Bado gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes.

"What're you talking about?" She growled.

"This!" He gestured at her, the sudden motion making the little bird on his other hand flutter it's wings and squawk testily. "You're looking at me like I want to eat your heart again! How many times must I prove to you that I do not intend to harm you?"

"Well, I-" Frey began hotly, but faltered, blinking at him with sudden realization. "I... you're right... I'm sorry." She mumbled. His hard expression melted from his eyes and brow and he glanced away. "It's just so strange... Maybe every time I wake up I figure since this situation is clearly impossible, I must have dreamt it." She shrugged and gave a hapless little smile. Bado glanced back at her and sighed.

"Sorry for barking at you." He said sheepishly. "I suppose I can understand why you'd have a hard time believing or accepting this whole situation." He turned back to the bird on his arm and reached down into a little clay bowl full of wriggling, scuttling insects crawling halfway up the sides before sliding back down into the center of the smooth ceramic container. He plucked up a beetle with his fingertips and offered it to the kestrel, which snapped up the little invertebrate greedily and without hesitation.

"So, how did you sleep? Feel better today?" He asked conversationally without looking up at her and all the while continuing to give the kestrel bugs one by one.

"Yeah... at least a little..." She replied quietly. Then a groaning sound announced itself from her stomach and she clapped a hand over it and glanced up apologetically. He gave an expression halfway between a wince and a smile.

"Sorry, Frey. I know you're hungry. There's never very much out here, but as long as you aren't picky, I'll be able to keep you fed.

"I can't really afford to be picky anyway, can I?" She replied with a shadow of a wry smile on her features. He smiled in response.

"Good to hear you're thinking about this right. I thought you might turn your nose up at breakfast. He nudged the bowl of bugs toward her and she swallowed, belly growing a little cold as she understood his meaning. The writhing mass of bugs in the bowl couldn't have been more than two handfuls at the most, but at this moment she wasn't sure whether that was disappointing or a relief. She steeled herself and reached a trembling hand out over the bowl. Suddenly, Bado burst out laughing and she snatched her hand back and glared at him while the bird on his hand squawked and reordered itself after the disruption.

"You a bird, too, Frey? You know you don't have to eat them raw!" He guffawed again and shook his head.

"Well how should I know?" She snapped back, embarrassed. He shrugged and returned his attention to the bird, fiddling with a little strap on its leg and tieing a tiny roll of paper there. She stared at it and then looked up at him curiously.

"Sending a message?" She asked. He nodded. "What's it say?" He looked at her steadily for a moment or two, then back at the bird.

"Nothing interesting. Just an update." He mumbled. Silence stretched between them as she stared at him. The bird rustled and clicked a few times.

"Are you going to tell your people about me?" She asked, very quietly. He looked up at her, surprised, then a smile flickered on his face for a moment.

"No..." He answered, but did not elaborate. Then, without further ceremony, he stood up, walked over to the entrance of the cave and lifted his arm suddenly, spurring the bird into flight. It disappeared instantly through the opening in the rock walls and was gone on its mission of correspondence.

"Why not?" She asked after he had returned to the middle of the cave and sat down again, pulling a different bowl toward him and picking thorns off of cactus fruits within the bowl methodically.

"Because..." he said without looking up, "I'd have to kill you." Another long pause followed as she considered how to reply to this.

"Have the Fremen ever accepted an offworlder into their midst?" She asked after a time. He glanced up briefly, then returned to his task, just as before.

"Once, that I know of." He said quietly. "Liet is the only one. "But even he mistrusts all outsiders, now. I cannot write that I am keeping you here with me without great risk to you, so I do not."

"Why are you so determined to keep me rather than killing me?" Frey asked evenly, undeterred by the fact he had refused to answer this question up to now, regardless of how many times she asked it. Bado glanced up at her, annoyance and something else, anxious, in his eyes.

"Why do you want to know so badly?" He returned unhelpfully.

"Well..." She began, "If you're doing it out of compassion, why not help me get out of here so I'll stop being a burden on you?" He snorted impatiently. "I know." She said flatly. "You want to keep me alive here, specifically. You'll either have my water or my company, it seems. Either way you've claimed my life to do with as you wish." He looked up at her with an uneasiness in his eyes, but said nothing. She continued: "Is it any wonder I find it hard to trust you?" He sighed.

"Point taken." He grunted, "So, what will you do?"

"Depends on your answer." She replied calmly. He scowled. 'Why is he hiding it?' She thought in puzzlement. 'I'm at his mercy here, whats he got to lose?'

"Well I don't have an answer for you right now."

"You have a reason." She returned without pause. He frowned at her. "You just don't want to say what it is, for some reason." She stared at him, blinking periodically without emotion on her face. He looked away. "If you aren't ready to say, then I guess all I have left to do is wait." She stood up and dusted off her stillsuit. A glance at the cavern entrance told her it was probably close to dusk, the evening light golden as it filtered down through the mouth of the cave. "So, what do I need to do to help you prepare the food? I am very hungry, and I might as well do what I can." He stared up at her, mild surprise in his severely blue eyes.

"Sit down." He chided, chuckling softly. "You can break the rest of the thorns off these cactus fruit." He nudged the bowl toward her and smiled, lines creasing around his eyes. She sank back to the stone floor of the cave and eyed him in bemusement. Was he only giving her a child's task because she didn't know anything about desert life? As if reading her thought, he laughed again, shaking his head.

"I know you think you can bring down the moons one at a time, but you need to remember you've been losing water steadily since the crash on account of that second-rate stillsuit you're wearing. You need to lay low as much as possible, especially while it's light out, to conserve your remaining water." He gestured at her and his brows moved toward one another in a vaguely worried espression. She looked down and plucked at the slick gray material, looking herself and her interlocutor up and down to compare the appearance of their stillsuits.

"What's so different about it form yours?" He shrugged a shoulder.

"Not enough straps. Not tight enough. Seams are visibly loose and coming apart here and there. It's better than going about naked, but not nearly as good as a real stillsuit." He gestured at his own suit, made specifically for his grand proportions and she saw that the darker gray of his outfit indeed looked more tightly woven and fit more snugly to the various angles of his physique. For a moment, she even lost her gaze tracing those contours clearly visible through the suit's tight conformation to the man's body, until she realized how long her stare had lingered and looked away with a flurry of embarrassed blinking. She refused to look up at his face but somehow knew he was smirking behind the stillsuit mask he wore, even in his own secluded home. He tossed his head at her.

"You need to put your mask back on, too." He said, warning in his tone. "It's not as good as mine, but breathing out your moisture won't help matters. That mask is probably the most effective part of that suit." He tilted his head. "You been drinking from the catch pockets?" She tugged at the protruding straw with a bite valve anchored to her collar and looked at it, then at him.

"Not much. There doesn't seem to be any but a single sip a couple times a day." She shrugged, trying to hide the degree to which the reclaimed water of the suit disgusted her. Squeamishness was not affordable in the face of improbable survival, she knew, but despite all her training as a spy, she couldn't help having lived all her life amidst such abundance of moisture. This desperate measure in the face of absolute water desolation was more than a matter of culture shock.

The Fremen man before her frowned with concern. Frey abruptly realized she was growing used to seeing such an expression crease the lines around his eyes. So often, in fact, she could not help but wonder if it were possible he did not just abstain from murdering her, but actively cared about her well-being. Why, though? They'd known each other less than a week. There was no reason to believe he'd grown so attached in such a short space of time. Except the frequent return of that look...

"Worse than I thought..." He muttered, snapping her out of her wandering thoughts. "Listen, Frey. Eating costs the body some water. With a good stillsuit, you don't lose any that way but yours isn't. You'll live a lot longer hungry than thirsty, so you'd better not eat much for the time being. He indicated the bugs and fruits int he bowls. "Mostly the fruit for now... and grubs. No adult beetles, though. Fat will be easier for your body to digest than protein right now. No meat for the time being." He shook his head sternly as he spoke and she nodded, eyes large as she watched his grave expression. He handed her a mortar and pestle set and indicated the fruit again. "This kind is okay to eat without peeling but you need to roll it in the sand first to rub away the little spines, the ones you can't see. Then smash it up with this. It'll be easier than chewing it and will cost you less water. He stood up, the bowl of bugs forgotten for the moment.

"I need to set up some sun stills tonight to collect what water I can for you tomorrow." She blinked up at him.

"Water from the air?" He shook his head. She tilted hers in confusion.

"Not enough moisture in the air for that. I'll need to cut some of the plants and put parts of them in the stills."

"Oh..." She said, her brows knitting together. "Do you have to? They're still so small..." The big man stopped his suddenly nervous movement toward the cave entrance and stared at her in astonishment. She reddened under that blue gaze. "I mean... It's just... I don't want the plants to die." She said lamely, knowing this explanation for her reaction was like nothing so much as a child's irrational wishing. He smiled at her and shook his head.

"You're a strange one, Frey." Was all he said before he climbed up out of the cave into the dusky light and out of her line of sight. She stared after the man a few more minutes and then turned her attention back to the cactus fruit.

Snapping off the large spines was easy and quick enough, but rolling them in the sand proved less simple than it sounded. the small, invisible spines of the fruits began to stick in her fingers and burn the thinner skin between them after a time. Eventually she managed a trick of using a flat bit of shale lying next to the wall to roll the fruits and gently compress them, softening whatever structure within made them rigid. Finally, it took some practice to figure out how best to deconstruct the things through the use of the mortar and pestle so that she could scoop out the half-smashed pieces with her fingers and eat them before they became nothing but pulp rapidly drying out in the bowl. The novelty of the task kept her mind occupied until she had eaten enough of the fruits to stave off hunger, supposing she'd leave the grubs for later int he night, not knowing how her stomach would take to the cactus fruit in the first place. Then, she was alone with her thoughts.

She didn't dare go out and follow the man about until full dark, at least. He probably wouldn't want her moving about so much if she was losing water at as worrying a rate as he seemed to think she was. So, having little alternative, She lay on her back on the rapidly cooling stone of the cave floor and looked up at the ceiling. It was empty of decoration, stony and silent enough that it felt almost like it was throwing back echoes of her restless thoughts.

What was it all for? This man had gone as far as to comfort and soothe her as she slept. True his mood seemed to change between those quiet, gentle moments before sleep and this evening's conversations upon their waking, but she could hardly cast stones, given her own shift in temperament. All this fussing about trying to gather food, distill water from whatever he had available to him, and insisting she limit her activity despite the initial bargain in which he'd demanded her help in exchange for her life... Why did he seem so concerned for her? She was not prepared to take it at face value. It made no sense whatsoever, but still... a nagging little feeling in her gut told her that the big Fremen's concern was exactly what it appeared to be. She shook off the feeling, frowning up at the ceiling. The instant embarrassment of supposing the man liked her was too mortifying to entertain the thought more than the fraction of an instant in which it first cropped up. Preposterous. What was there to like about a mistrustful water-wasting offworlder who was nothing but a burden to him. Her spy training and loyalty to Duke Leito meant nothing here. She had nothing to offer him.

Well... not exactly nothing...

Her cheeks grew hot and she frowned again, pushing away the thought. Surely that wasn't his agenda. If slaking a different kind of thirst had been what he was after, why not just take her? He'd shown such unmistakable disgust at the idea of forcing himself on her when she suspected him before, she doubted very much he'd grow desperate enough to do it, now. But still, a man still in his prime could hardly live in the middle of nowhere, alone, and feel nothing at the sudden arrival of a woman utterly dependent on him for survival for the foreseeable future. It didn't quite add up. Her mind slowly began to wander as she puzzled over these thoughts, accompanied only by the soft whisper of desert winds and night insects outside.

Still stiff and fatigued, she soon fell asleep again for a time, so that when she woke again it was full dark, only the soft gentle light of the glow globe still offering her visibility in the close quarters of the cave. She blinked slowly, her mind sluggish and her body stiff. Had dehydration begun to affect her ability to think already? Gradually she became aware of the cold. First her eyes felt it, having just opened, and then she realized the rest of her had grown almost numb with it. She sat up and hugged her knees, rubbing at her legs and arms alternately. The the day before came to mind again. Her brow furrowed as she recollected.

He'd been so absorbed in his determination to keep her warm, going as far as to put away his kris knife elsewhere in the room to convince her to be at ease. Then he'd practically pleaded with her to let him lie close and keep her warm with nothing but himself. Her cheeks warmed despite the cold still making her limbs clumsy.

It had been... good. The little spy had steeled herself and banished any expectation or anticipation of comfort on this cruel, desolate planet. Especially since being pursued into the merciless desert. The unexpected nature of the gentle embrace he'd gifted her all the while she slept made the relief it bore her all the more potent. Frey looked about her and sighed, wondering where the man was and whether she should go looking for him.

Much as her restless spirit spurred her to venture out, her puzzlement and fatigue made her wholly unequal to the task. Succumbing to inertia and settling down to huddle her arms and legs close in the chill, she steeled herself to wait through the night for her strange benefactor to return to her.

The evening wore on, measurable only in her heartbeats, the slowly growing weariness and cold, and the innate certainty of time passing. Even that instinct was woefully inadequate, however. Who knew whether the hours she thought she counted might actually be mere minutes, protracted in her mind by the constant agony of waiting. Patience had never been her strong suit, but it was made all the more difficult by her growing conviction that she might actually freeze to death.

The thought should have been alarming. She should have been scared. Spurred to action. Something, for heaven's sake! But... it seemed a waste of her little remaining strength, somehow. Slowly she grew limp, her chin now resting on her arms over her knees. If she could just rest a little... surely he'd come back soon and wake her, anyhow...

Some corner of her consciousness fought frantically against the growing dimness that crept into her mind, knowing distantly that this lethargy was the onset of cold that would eventually claim her life, but she found she couldn't muster enough energy to care, just now.

Moving was so hard. Everything was hard. Everything hurt. Sleep... if she could just sleep. She wasn't... supposed to... her sluggish thoughts protested, puzzled. The memory eluded her. Why was that again? Some reason had been there. That's why she was upright, wasn't it? She sank a little more weakly into the compressed posture and her eyes fluttered slowly closed.

A little nap couldn't hurt... surely not... when it felt... so...

Blackness swallowed up Frey's consciousness in an insidiously gradual undertow, so that she never knew she'd fallen asleep, head resting upon her knees in an upright position on the stone floor of her strange Fremen keeper's home.


	6. Unintended Truths

The return of consciousness seemed nothing but a burden to her as Frey's mind began to stir sluggishly, immediately assaulted by the familiar-by-now ache of her days-old bruises and her empty stomach. Then a second sensation imposed itself on her grudging awareness. She was warm... very warm. She tried vaguely to stir her limbs and found her feeble attempts at movement thwarted. Expecting nothing but the hot dry air of daytime in the desert, she wondered at the sensation, gradually registering that something very warm and very solid was pressing down on her.

Frey's eyes snapped open in confused panic. Vivid blue irises met her gaze immediately, too close for her to even look away from them. Abruptly she recognized the warmth and pressure against her as the feeling of a body pressed against her own, skin to skin. She tried to cry out but only managed a weakly panicked exhalation.

He was on top of her, bare hot skin pressed against her own, his weight pinning her down to the bedroll. She sucked in a breath full of terror and fury and tried to push him away or scratch at his face but her sleep-numbed arms could barely managed a meek pawing at him, devoid of anything but confused, addled resistance of no particular effectiveness.

How could he do this, after everything he'd said and done so far? Incredulous wrath and a startlingly painful sense of betrayal flashed through her like lightning as Frey frantically tried to rally her mind to put up a fight. At the very least, she wouldn't submit meekly to his machinations.

Almost as soon as she opened her eyes, the blue eyes staring down at her blinked, widened and a grin spread across the face poised just before her own, stretching the smile lines around Bado's mouth as the Fremen man registered her return to consciousness.

"Frey!" He gasped, an ecstatic light in his eyes. Her hands were limply flopping into his face by then, the closest she could come just now at scratching his eyes out. He laughed aloud and caught up one of her hands in his, leaning on his elbows to keep the bulk of his great weigh off her chest, and pressed her slender fingers to his cheek and mouth and laughed again, relief so unmistakable in his voice that the woman beneath him blinked and stilled in utter, baffled shock and confusion.

"Wha-" She gasped weakly. Trying again to take stock of the situation, Frey re-verified that she was lying on her back, some course fabric she presumed to be the bedroll at her back... her bare back. The warm unmistakable touch of the Fremen man's own unrobed flesh pressed against her from above all the way down her front, his hairy chest and legs rougher than the rest of him. Then she realized she could feel the fabric of her underwear still over her lower abdomen, groin, and buttocks. She blinked again and her lips separated in a surprised, voiceless syllable.

"You scared me halfway to the moons!" He bayed joyfully, and grinned down at her some more. "I wasn't sure you were going to come back." The deep voice of the big man atop her grew almost faint toward the end of his statement, as though he suddenly registered that he was speaking these words aloud. A small handful of emotions flickered across his eyes. He looked surprised, embarrassed, indignant, then finally sheepish, before sighing and adding with a resignation not wholly separate from his obvious elation, "I... was worried."

Bit by bit her memory came back to her as Frey swallowed and tried to breathe her way through the moment. She had fallen asleep in the cold of night here in the cavern while waiting for him to return. The evening had been uncomfortable but the chill night of the desert had become downright lethally cold. By rights she should be dead of hypothermia by now, but in the absence of any other tool to hand, the big Fremen man had used himself to warm her back from the brink of freezing to death, forgoing their clothing to speed the process.

Abruptly the wretchedness of guilt joined every other flavor of weariness and pain the little Atreides spy had hitherto already been burdened with. Her throat felt tight and the inside of it, dry as it was, choked her. She turned her head and coughed away from his face as best she could. He bent his brows in sympathy and looked concerned at her.

"Are you alright? Can you speak?"

"Y-you're... heavy." Frey gasped. Bado threw his head back and laughed a happy, booming laugh and rolled off of her onto his back. Only then did Frey realize he'd piled at least tree cloaks and a makeshift blanket stitched together from scraps of uniforms and banners over the pair of them to help contain their body heat. Now he lay beside her upon the bedroll beneath the blanket, almost as if they had just ravished one another in exuberant lovemaking and were now panting on their backs, side by side, in the afterglow.

Her face flushed crimson as the thought occurred to her, accompanied by the skin of her breasts and belly turning to gooseflesh as the chill air touched them again. To complete the ludicrous picture, her nipples hardened at the touch of the night's cold. She gritted her teeth and another unbidden thought ushered guilt further into her heart.

After all his insistence that one must keep his or her stillsuit on to have a prayer of survival in this desert he had removed his own to save her life, risking himself via water loss for no reason other than her well-being. An irrational anger burned behind her eyes. Finding her body not yet ready to heed her commands, Frey turned her head to look to the man who had preserved her life and hissed a choked query:

"Why?"

He blinked at her, expression startled, confused, then sympathetic.

"Why what?" He replied quietly.

"You know what." She replied in an exhausted growl. "I've been asking you for days. Why go so far? You haven't just kept me alive... You've saved me... More than once, now. Why are you doing this?"

Bado let his face relax to complete passivity and looked up at the rock ceiling of the cavern that was his home.

"Why do you need to know so badly?" He asked quietly after several heartbeats.

"I just do." She replied, not knowing, herself, why she burned to have this one question answered. Curiosity, maybe? His actions didn't make much sense, logically. That is, unless... unless she allowed for the possibility her mind had already ruled out, burning with embarrassment for ever having considered it in the first place.

Bado sighed, then remained silent for a long moment before replying again, so quietly his voice was barely a basso hum to her ears.

"Because I like you, little offworlder." He answered suddenly, paused, and continued as if this admission threw open the gate for him to share more of himself than ever before. "I don't know at all whether it's because of who you are, what you are, or perhaps merely that you are here with me, where there has been no one for so long... I don't know what first stayed my hand when I found you trespassing in my very home. I don't know why I need you to survive, other than that for the first time in a great long while, there is someone beside me. But that hardly seems enough of a reason on its own. So I have no particularly good answer for you, Frey, except that I like you. I don't want our acquaintance to end with your death, especially if I can preserve you from it."

Frey just stared at him, mouth slightly open, eyes wide. He resolutely kept his gaze on the ceiling, remaining silent for a few beats before registering that she apparently had no response of her own as of yet, and continuing even further with his admission.

"It is strange. It is not the way of Fremen to do as I have done. I should have killed you. I should have killed you on sight." He glanced down at himself for a moment as he lay there. "I'm out of my stillsuit. It's suicide to do so for long. Yet here I am, unable to hold back my relief. I thought you would die, Frey... and I was afraid."

Silence stretched between them again as she considered his words without replying for several long minutes.

"I am dead... as far as my lord and my people are concerned." She said quietly, a resigned calm in her voice. "I vanished... and left no trace. And now, I have no means to send them a message or get back to them in sight. So, the fact that I yet live is utterly irrelevant." She swallowed and a half-crazed, desperately confused little smile quirked one corner of her mouth. "Except to you, it seems." Her voice wavered as she said this last, and she felt her chest buck slightly with restrained sobs. She did not let the tears come, closing her eyes against them.

A large, rough hand found hers at her side and squeezed gently. She held her eyes even more tightly shut, determined to keep fighting this losing battle.

"Your survival ought to be relevant to you, too, Frey." He said quietly, "It would reassure me greatly to know that you will not expire if I leave you to your own devices."

"I can't be trusted with my own life, clearly." She said in a flat tone. Another long pause left nothing for her to focus on aside from the rhythm of the Fremen man's heartbeat through the soft grip of his hand upon hers.

"You could trust me with it, then..." He murmured, "Voluntarily this time, I mean." She smiled a halpless, broken smile up at the rock ceiling of the cave.

"I think... I believe you." She squeaked, "Which is basically insane." She added, and let out half of a frantic, baffled laugh. Then her face fell into a strange combination of sudden affection and scorn for the man beside her. "I hope you haven't been living alone in the desert waiting for a wife to fall from the sky into your lap, or any such foolishness." He chuckled, smiling slightly at her with a warm expression.

"A wife would be nice..." He said, smirking as her expression leaned more in the direction of disapproval at his jest, "...But I'd settle for a friend at this point." He stroked her fingers with his thumb as he said this last, his voice growing softer and quieter at the end.

Frey's brow furrowed, growing yet more troubled.

"What is it?" He murmured.

"If I can't leave here... I'll never know if I l-like you or if it's merely circumstance that binds us... and if I can somehow leave... I am obliged to do so; to go and pick up where I left off in service to house Atreides. There is no way for this to end happily, Bado." She swallowed, waiting in suspense for his answer.

"I don't know if that matters much to me..." He said thoughtfully. She turned and stared at him, confusion written on her face. He shrugged. "I did not intend to like you, little one. It was not planned. It seems I can't help it. So, whether you like me or not probably won't stop me from wanting to care for and protect you."

Frey just stared at him. She'd lived a hard, isolated life in service to a noble family. She had much to be proud of, many skills and accomplishments to her name in her cloak-and-dagger trade as a spy. But, she'd never had anyone to stand beside her. Spies were not as useful if there was a person to ransom against their loyalty or performance of their duties. It was part of her code that she reserve her loyalty for house Atreides only. She was not at liberty to love someone, even if there had been anyone up to now...

And now, impossibly, this big, gruff, coyote of the desert was calmly telling her he'd cherish and shield her life regardless of whether she bore him any affinity at all. She suddenly wondered why love songs described falling in love as euphoria when this felt like swallowing stones. Her chest ached as her heart clenched and her pulse quickened and slowed alternately with every new revelation from his lips.

How could he say these things to a hopelessly lost and useless little stranger that the universe had suddenly burdened him with?

"You're an idiot." She choked, throat tight and eyes burning. He laughed gently.

"Probably."

She felt her lips curl into a hapless smile at their corners, but she couldn't have spoken another word for all the spice on Arakis, just now.

"I don't need you to answer my feelings right now." He added after a few moments. "Don't push yourself. Just rest." She nodded mutely. He gave an almost-smile and sat up, the covers sliding down off his bare chest. Her eyes traced his figure as he reached for his stillsuit and she swallowed involuntarily. The man was all muscle, huge and thickly proportioned and angular in every bit of him. The sinews bunched and slid beneath the skin of his back as he reached for his feet and bound the ankle straps of his stillsuit. Then he paused, glancing over his shoulder and catching her eyes combing over him. He smirked and lifted his eyebrows slightly.

Frey blinked furiously and looked away from him, clutching at the edge of the makeshift blankets nervously to preserve what little dignity she had, lying half naked in his bed with no memory of how she got to be there. The big man chuckled under his breath and finished binding up his stillsuit over his large frame. Somewhere in her mind Frey thought what a shame it was that his body spent virtually all his time sealed up behind the glossy grey stillsuit. She clenched her teeth and swatted down the thought.

Once his stillsuit was all in order, Bado turned to her.

"Let's get you back into yours. The sunstills produced a little water today. It should help you get through the next couple days until help comes."

"Help?" She squeaked. "B-but you said you weren't going to tell your people about me!"

"I'll explain... after we get your stillsuit back on." He assured her. She complied, arranging her shaky limbs according to his direction until she, too was once again fitted for survival in the Aarakian desert. He clucked disapprovingly at her stillsuit once more, and wrapped her in a blue cloak, then a deep red one over that. She felt almost like a child being dressed for cold weather by a parent. Ridiculous. "We need to keep you warmer, especially until you've got a better stillsuit and stop losing water so much."

"Who is coming here? And how?" She pressed him.

"A friend of mine, hopefully."

"Hopefully?" She repeated, incredulous. He nodded.

"If it's not him, we'll hide you. If it is, you can meet him." He said all this simply and calmly, as if it was obvious in and of itself.

"Why on all the worlds of this galaxy would you call for someone to come out here while you're harboring an offworlder?" She hissed.

"Because," He replied calmly, "You need a stillsuit, and water or you'll die soon. I can't get you those things out here, so I had to call for help." She looked at him worriedly and he reached out a warm hand and squeezed her arm gently. "Don't worry Frey. I will guard your life with mine."

"That's ridiculous." She bit back, a bizarre combination of rage and giddy elation bubbling in her chest, "You haven't known me a week and you're saying things like that?" He smiled and shrugged again.

"I told you: I didn't plan for this. It's just what's happening. I don't waste energy denying a reality just before my eyes. You ought to try doing the same." Then, without reacting to her fretful expression, he turned and picked up a canteen and held it up to show her. Her dry throat twitched and she raised a hand to reach for it but he held it out of her reach, waiting for eye contact. She met his gaze in frustrated confusion. "Let me help you." he cautioned, "You need to do this slowly. You're in rough shape so rapid change will be hard on you. Might even harm more than help." He unscrewed the cap and moved close beside her.

She complied quietly, though it occurred to her she might have done anything he asked of her just now for a little of that water. Bado lifted the canteen to her lips and carefully tipped it so that a tiny trickle of water flowed into her mouth. It was warm and tasted earthy and dusty, but it was water, by the great mother! Blessed, life-giving, wet water! Almost as soon as she'd swallowed a mouthful he tipped the thing back and pulled it away from her mouth. She exhaled a frustrated little breath and bent her brows at him in disappointment.

"I promise I will give you all that I have to give, but you must trust me and pace yourself." He implored. She nodded slightly, eyes dropping as guilt panged her again. She'd never been so wholly dependent on another person since early childhood. It felt strange, and shameful. But, she supposed, she was hardly in any position to do anything other than what he told her to. So, little by little she tamely accepted the water he brought directly to her lips, about two thirds of a liter by the end. And then, because he insisted, she lay back down and dozed beneath the blanket.

By and by the sun rose somewhere outside, and the interior of the cavern grew warm again. Bado stayed with her through the heat of the day, napping on and off, himself between checking on her. When the temperature began to drop he told her he had to tend to the plants and gather food for them, but he murmured reassurances and promised to return before the cold settled in. He would come back and lie with her through the cold of the night and keep her warm, he promised, and Frey nodded without comment.

She probably should have roundly rejected the intimacy she'd suddenly found herself sharing with the man. At the very least, she should be reluctant, surely. But, all the 'should be's seemed rather irrelevant just now. Frey sighed out a long breath into her breathing mask, worn at the insistence of the peculiar man that she was utterly depending on for survival. In the scattered moments when she felt brave enough to be honest with herself, the truth flickered through her mind: She didn't want to push him away anymore.


	7. Friend of a Friend

The space of time between the Fremen's confession and the arrival of the 'friend' he'd summoned by messenger hawk was oddly indistinct to Frey. True, that could have been because at Bado's insistence she spent much of it sleeping, eating a little, and generally trying to conserve her water. Gradually she grew used to sipping at the stale recycled water of the stillsuit's bite-valve at her collar. The notion still bothered her, but that repugnance paled in the face of the need to survive. If it weren't for the pattern of her captor-turned-caretaker's nightly return to lie with her and keep her warm in the colder half of the night, which was quickly becoming routine, she probably would not have known at all that it had only been two days when the visitor arrived.

She'd been lying down on the bedroll again, staring at the familiar-by-now rock ceiling of the cavern. Ordinarily Frey could never have borne such little activity over such a long stretch of time, but the fatigue that seeped into her as her remaining moisture seeped out was frightfully hard to argue with.

Outside, a rushing, rumbling sound a little ways off in the distance announced the arrival of the guest. Bado sat up from where he'd been half-reclined, peeling cactus fruit and depositing it into a ceramic bowl. He extended a big hand and gently touched Frey's shoulder to rouse her and gain her attention.

"I'm going to go out and see who has come. Hopefully it's the person I sent for, but if not... well, it'd be troublesome to explain away an offworlder in my home, so we need to hide you." She nodded mutely, careful not to move her dry lips much for fear they would crack and bleed. In a matter of moments they'd negotiated her into the furthest corner of the cave and hidden her beneath the makeshift blankets he'd stitched as well as a small mound of captured sundries.

It wasn't exactly a masterful hiding place, not likely to fool anyone who was already searching the cave for a stowaway but an eye not biased by the expectation of a hidden human being would hardly pause over it. Plus, Bado assured her, it was very unlikely that any visitor other than his friend would have any reason to come inside, so hiding her was more of a precaution than a necessity. Finally, satisfied that she was safely hidden from casual observation, Bado climbed out of the cave and Frey's easy earshot.

Through the muffling effect of the blankets and other articles piled atop her curled-up frame, the little spy could tell that he was speaking to someone, but it was impossible through all the rock and Arakian sand to hear what the voices were saying, specifically. In any case, the deeper basso of Bado's voice did not sound strained or alarmed in any way, so that must bode well, she thought with mild interest.

Really, she thought, She should be much more nervous or concerned over the result of this visit and burning with the need to know who the visitor was, but exhaustion and the sickly faded haze of dehydration upon her made even matters of survival seem dim and uninteresting.

Gradually the voices grew louder and Frey realized the pair of Fremen were drawing close to the small cavern. Apprehension stirred somewhere in her mind, far away. After a time she recognized the big Fremen's deep voiced chuckle but his interlocutor was less amused, judging by his tone as they stopped just before the entrance.

"Alright I've played along long enough, Bado. You gonna tell me why you asked for a stillsuit that couldn't possibly do you any good?" An unfamiliar voice said, nettled but bearing the sounds of long practiced patience.

"Gaius, why so worried? You know me well enough by now, right?" Bado replied with an eel's wriggling in his evasive tone. Frey suddenly realized with a tiny smirk that neither of these Fremen men probably knew what an eel was.

"Knowing you as well as I do makes it all the less reassuring, actually." Gaius replied flatly. "The question is, who is out here with you that doesn't have a stillsuit, huh?"

"Who said there was someone else here? You know this post is a solo gig."

"Then why would you ask me to bring a female stillsuit?" Gaius shot back, irritated.

"Maybe I came out here to live alone where I can take up cross-dressing in peace." Bado replied airily. Beneath the blankets, Frey rolled her eyes. He wasn't even trying to be convincing, merely stringing his friend along to no evident purpose but procrastination. Was he just doing it to annoy the other man or was he actually stupid enough to think he could talk his way out of suspicion with such lame excuses?

"Not that anything would surprise me at this point," Gaius jeered, ribbing the big man for his jest, "But you asked for this size!" She could imagine the other man gesturing with the stillsuit in hand as he put emphasis on the word. "It's for someone at least forty centimeters shorter than you, you big oaf!"

"It's really no big deal, Gaius. You don't need to get involved." A hint of something serious entered Bado's tone as he said this last bit, and Frey wondered what consequences would befall him if he were discovered to be harboring an offworlder by his people. A rustle and a silence made Frey visualize the big man reaching for the stillsuit, only to have it snatched backward out of his grasp, a supposition supported by Gaius' next words:

"You're scaring me. Whatever you've gotten yourself into, you'd better tell me and don't give me any bullshit about keeping me out of it for my safety. We're blood, cousin. I'm not just gonna pretend I don't see how shifty you're being." The spy hidden in the room furrowed her brow as she registered Gaius' words. For some reason it hadn't occured to her that Bado's 'friend' would actually be a family member. Suddenly Frey remembered that Bado had said she could meet his friend and now that his relationship to the other man was revealed, she wondered even more why he hadn't revealed her yet.

"It's hard to explain..." He grumbled in his deep voice, but there was no sign of escalation or frustration in it. He must have intended to tell Gaius all along but for a lack of the right words in hand, she thought.

"Well..." She mused to herself, "I'm not getting any less dehydrated while I wait..." And she began to uncurl her limbs and sit up.

"I'm serious," Gaius was saying, "If you don't tell me what's going on with you right now, I'll turn around and go, and you can forget about the supplies you begged me to bri--" He broke off as the rustling of the blankets drew his attention. She heard him gasp as her eyes adjusted to the different light and she blinked at the appearance of Bado's 'cousin'.

Gaius stood only slightly taller than her own diminutive stature. He had an untidy mop of dark hair, matching the color of Bado's own perfectly, but unlike the big man standing beside him he had no facial hair, giving him a boyish appearance. A long, thin scar trailed down his face over his right eye, permanently closed, but his left still told of his heritage with it's spice blue hue.

Frey wriggled weakly out from under the bulk of the objects that had concealed her and leaned her back against the wall, looking at Gaius with half-lidded, exhausted eyes. Noting that both the men had removed their breathing masks she supposed it good manners to do the same for a first meeting, at least. She peeled back the mask and looked levelly at the visitor. His single eye widened and he stared, motionless at her for a long moment.

She had intended to greet him but her head spun as soon as she was upright, making it impossible to utter a salutation just yet.

"Bado..." Gaius breathed quietly, shocked and apprehensive, "What did you do?" Bado's lip curled slightly at the accusation and he flippantly replied:

"Well, I took her in, kept her alive despite her lack of a decent stillsuit, saved her from a maker, and oh right, kept her secret from all but you, bein' that I needed you to bring what she needs to survive."

"Are you mad?" Gaius hissed, turning on his kinsman. "Stealing away an offworlder?! What happens when more of them come to look for her?" Bado looked affronted.

"I didn't steal her away from anywhere. She fell from the sky." Gaius growled a frustrated sound, glaring at Bado. But as he opened his mouth to retort. Frey interrupted.

"In a thopter." She said in a thin voice, and smiled weakly at Gaius. Both men turned to look at her. Gaius blinked. Bado smirked. "I crashed almost right on top of this place... came inside... he didn't kill me." She explained. Gaius swallowed, staring at her with a hard blue eye. Then he moved, walking over and kneeling beside her. Her eyes followed him but she did not move, exhausted enough to be a spectator to her own fate for the moment. Besides... Bado had gone to such a lot of trouble for her and he seemed to trust Gaius, so... she supposed she could do worse than mirror that trust.

Gaius looked her over, wincing when he saw the shadows beneath her eyes and her cracked lips. He reached out a hand suddenly and she flinched reflexively, more from her training than acute awareness of the situation. Chagrin flickered in his features but he gently pressed his fingers to her throat, measuring her pulse. His expression darkened for a moment and he shot a glare over his shoulder at Bado, who furrowed his brow at his cousin. The smaller Fremen looked back into her eyes.

"What's your name, little one?" She blinked at the gentleness in his voice, hesitated, then murmured:

"Frey." Gaius drew in a long, slow breath and stood up, turning to Bado and scowling.

"She's in bad shape. Why'd you wait so long?" The tone of his voice brooked no humor, and so Bado gave none, switching into gravity of manner instantly in reflection to Gaius' own demeanor.

"She tried to run away, drew a maker right to her. I had to use my last thumper to save her. Other than that, it's been that slipshod stillsuit-the kind smugglers sell to offworlders. She's only been here a few days."

"That's a few days too many without a stillsuit." Gaius growled. Bado nodded, making no move to defend himself from the admonishment.

"Yeah."

They stared at one another for a beat or two and then Gaius sighed and slipped a satchel off his back and deposited it on the sandy stone floor. He pressed the wrapped package of the stillsuit into Bado's big hands and began unpacking the satchel.

"Get her into that. I've brought the water you asked for." He said quietly, the edge not quite gone form his voice but he made no more accusations or protests. Bado nodded and walked over to Frey where she sat. He smiled at her and she smiled weakly back, too tired to remember that she should never have trusted him in the first place... or how impossible this all was.

"You're going to be alright, Frey." He murmured quietly, his voice nothing but gentleness. She looked into his intensely blue eyes for a moment, saying nothing. Her eyes slid sideways, looking over his shoulder to where Gaius sat with his back to them, still rummaging in his bag.

"Sorry about Gaius." Bado said warmly, "He can be a bit of a pill." He winked at her and Gaius made a scoffing sound. Bado chuckled. His fingers found her jawline and gently brought her gaze back to him. "You are safe." He said insistently. "Please trust me. I've kept you whole this far. I'm not about to stop now." She matched his gaze a moment, then nodded slightly. He smiled again. "Good girl. I need to get you into this new stillsuit. Will you let me?" She nodded again. He cupped her cheek with his big, warm hand and looked at her with a surge of affection in his expression. She felt her cheeks color against the pallor of her sickly state and that made it all the more embarrassing when his smile widened.

She had feared for an instant that he would undress her in the manner of a lover, a thing some ridiculous part of her hoped for but the rest rejected with vehement shame, but when his hands found the straps and seals of the shoddy stillsuit she had crashed in not a week ago, his touch was swift, efficient, and practical. He spoke quiet instructions to her as he proceeded to strip her down out of her stillsuit and negotiated her into the new one. She submitted tamely to his instructions and the whole affair was over in a matter of a couple of minutes. She gasped slightly as the mysterious gray material of the stillsuit responded the moisture in her flesh by tightening onto her every curve. The thing fit like a second skin despite the strange intricate mazeworks of tubes and catch pockets built into it.

"There..." He sighed with relief in his voice. "Now we can get you back in shape, eh?" Gaius turned about and walked over to them now that the need to preserve her modesty had passed, and knelt down to give her a set of clothes in the Fremen style. They were loose and malleable enough to serve several roles depending on the time of day, temperature, or situation and the fabric shimmered richly blue, lapis and cerulean depending on how the light hit it.

"Thank you." She said deliberately, making eye contact with each man in turn and holding the fabric in her lap. Bado nodded with a small smile and in reply, Gaius cracked a surprisingly natural smile, though it was still tinged with worry.

"I think it'll suit you." He said, a little uncertainly. "But..." Here he hesitated, glancing sidelong at Bado, "Do you wish to stay, Frey?" Bado's expression collapsed into worry as he heard Gaius' question, reminded suddenly of the conditions of her tentative residency with him. Frey watched the struggle in his eyes; watched the uncertainty and guilt and hope flicker atop one another in those blue, blue, eyes... and made a choice.

If she were dead to the Harkonen and dead to Atreides, and she plainly owed her life to this man several times over to boot... well... it was not as hard as she thought it would be.

"Yes." She whispered, never breaking eye contact with Bado as she spoke. His eyes widened and he stilled with the surprised, tentative joy of a child being granted something he never believed he'd receive. The sight pulled at the corner of her mouth and she laughed weakly.

'I really am insane...' She thought without rancor. Gaius watched his cousin's face and then sighed, shaking his head and smiling.

"By Shai Hulud I don't know what kind of stars light your path, cousin. You have always chosen to walk the strangest road... But," He allowed, "This time I think I can get behind it." The cousins smiled at one another approvingly. Then Bado seemed to realize something and reached up to the single gold ring braided into the fabric ornamentation of his collar. He fumbled with it a moment until it slipped free of the fabric ties and lay upon his upturned palm, extended to his visitor.

"Thanks for bringing the supplies, Gaius. You've saved her as much as I have now. Here's to cover the water... I'll have to owe you for the stillsuit, I'm afraid." With a small jolt of realization Frey realized the significance of the ring. It wasn't a sentimental token. It was currency. For the first time she registered the subtle glint of a series of gold bands woven into Gaius' collar in a similar fashion, peeking out from beneath the neck of his cloak.

Gaius stared down at the gold band in Bado's hand, brow furrowed slightly in silent contemplation, he looked up into Bado's eyes, glanced at Frey, then gave a ghost of a smile as he pushed Bado's hand back toward it's owner.

"Keep it. You don't owe me anything this time." He said quietly. Bado fretted at that.

"But, Gai-"

"Keep it." Gaius repeated, more insistently. He made a point of looking at Frey and then back at the larger man. "You'll need it, eh?" Bado blinked at that, glanced at Frey from the corner of his eye and huffed a little laugh.

"One can only hope, I suppose." He murmured, almost inaudibly. Gaius nodded and stood up. Frey looked between them curiously but no explanation was offered for this exchange.

"Well, I should get back to the sietch. Liet's been tense lately. Something to do with the changing of the offworlder government, though why that should matter to us is beyond me. In any case, he has all of us running around like ants with preparations. For once, yours is the easier job." Bado chuckled.

"I rather think it always was." He returned, but Frey was too busy with an unsettled, reflexive curiosity inspired by Gaius' words to follow the man's playful banter with his cousin.

Whoever 'Liet' was, he had access to the information that Duke Leito Atreides would be coming to Dune soon to replace Rabban as governer of the planet. How, when none but the Padisha Emperor's council, The Atreides and Harkonen actually involved knew of this changing of the guard, did some kind of Fremen leader out in the middle of the desert know?

She frowned to herself as her mind automatically began trying to piece things together despite her fatigued state. She could not undo her spy training any more than she could fly by flapping her arms and it felt slimy and unpleasant to her now that she had just accepted her desire to stay with the Fremen man she'd come to trust and beyond that even expressed it aloud to him.

'It doesn't matter...' She told herself. That Frey died in the crash, chased into an unforgiving wilderness until a storm brought her down. The Harkonen had robbed Atreides of another agent in her and that was that. But, simply insisting that it was irrelevant did not make it so. She shifted uneasily in her mind until Bado's words reminded her of her current lack of choice in the matter, and her restless mind stilled once again.

"Well," He said, turning to Frey with a smile as Gaius lifted the nearly empty satchel to his shoulder and prepared to go, "We need to get this water into you, don't we, Frey?" He wagged the curved canteen Gaius had brought in one hand where she was sure to see it and she suddenly became aware anew of her parched mouth and dry throat.

"Thanks again." Bado said to Gaius as they clasped hands and Gaius turned to go.

"Right." The smaller man replied, "Send for me if you need something else, but other than that just keep laying low." His tone turned warning as he looked at her and then back at Bado. "She is not Liet, and he no longer remembers that he was not born Fremen, I'll wager." Bado nodded gravely and bid him a final farewell.


	8. Unmaking Her

Wordlessly, Bado sat close to Frey and gave her water in measured doses like medicine after Gaius had left. She trusted without question that he knew how best to nurture her dehydration, and so she silently abided his every movement and gesture.

Bit by bit, life flowed back into her as by his hand water flowed into her mouth and down her throat. As if the life-supporting liquid had been immediately soaked up by her brain, resembling a withered sponge, clarity of mind returned to Frey of house Atreides and she found herself once again poised upon the line between conviction and self doubt just in time to be challenged by his first words to her since Gaius left:

"You said yes." He said, very quietly, and looked into her eyes, his own glimmering with hope. She returned the gaze, terrified by that optimistic wanting, and swallowed.

"Yes..." She echoed, both reliving and confirming her answer.

"Did you mean it? You want to stay?" He asked, staring so intently into her that her stomach twisted.

"I..." She began, then swallowed and licked her lips. "I did... I wanted to. I still want to mean that... but..." She trailed off, struggling with how much like backpedaling this sounded, but the man sitting close enough to count her eyelashes 'hm'ed softly with understanding.

"...but it is not so easy as that to unmake what you've been all your life, hm?" She nodded, throat tight and eyes burning.

"I don't want to be her anymore..." She whispered, "But... I have no idea how to be anything else." His lips parted to respond but she seized one of his big, angular hands and looked urgently into his eyes. "I was born to this work. I was nothing at all before I dedicated my life in service to a lord I've never actually met... I was a tool in the hand of Thufir Hawat, and an expendable one at that..." The floodgates were open and the thoughts that had formed in the past days poured out of her, suddenly unbound by shame as she held a dagger to the throat of her past. "You are the first person ever to value me for... just being, rather than for what I can do for you. But, I-she would never have done this..."

"Trusted me?" He offered. She nodded.

"Or abandoned her duty to choose a different life. If I slay my past... what am I?" She looked at him, as lost in her heart as she had been lost altogether before fumbling her way to his cavern in this vast sea of Arakian sand.

"What you choose to be... As soon as you choose it, you are." He said calmly but firmly, "There is no dramatic change outside to mark when you make such a choice, but from that moment, you are different. Your eyes may not turn blue for years, but if you wish to be Fremen... if you wish to belong here, you will, Frey. I will make it so."

Frey's breath pulled deeply at her lungs as emotion did strange things to her pulse, throat, and eyes. She felt terrified, vividly alive, and like she would come apart at the seams all at once. She leaned very close, noticing the darker pools of deep blue-black dilating at the center of his spice-blue eyes. The soft stirring of their breath brushed each other's lips as she hesitated there, trembling as she stared into the strange blue eyes of her sole companion.

"And if I choose this?" She whispered, delicately settling her shaking hands on his chest, scared and hopeful and utterly obvious on both counts. All this was as much foreign territory as was the huge expanse of open desert just outside the oasis. There was little use pretending confidence now, and after all, hadn't he been the first to boldly let his feelings be known, just as they were, without expectation or demand of an answer? The least she could do was reciprocate his candor.

Bado's breath slowed, held behind his tongue as his fingertips found her sides and smoothed over her until his broad hands gently cupped the hourglass of her waist and he looked resolutely into her eyes.

"I would be yours..." He breathed in reply.

Once more everything slowed as unbidden thoughts flickered in Frey's mind. Her identity had up until this point been limited in scope to what Atreides wanted her to be, to what the mentat, Hawat, needed of her. She had never really owned anything, never really shaped her 'self' in any way but for the effort of being as skillful and effective as she might in her work. Now, another person sat before her promising to bind himself to her at her whim if she so chose. No one had offered her a choice since first Hawat found her in the gutter as a child on Caladan. And even then, her juvenile self back then would have agreed to anything for the food and shelter the old mentat had offered her. She hadn't really chosen this life... and now she didn't have to.

Frey returned to herself from the drift of memories with more certainty, unfamiliar in and of itself, within her heart. Now she had a real choice. She could choose him... not just to stay here but to be with him. The once spy hesitated again... she knew now she wanted this man who promised to be hers... but she didn't want his choice to be one made from pity. She licked her lips, still very close to his, but the big man made no move toward her, waiting patiently for her to come to the end of her inner contemplations.

"Up until now I've only been a burden to you..." She whispered. He shook his head slightly in denial but she moved her hands up to either side of his face and stilled his protest. "You know I've been lost... and I know you were right when you said that weakness and ignorance are my prison. But, I can be more... I can help you. I want you to see me as more than a lost, helpless offworlder. Will you teach me how to live here?" He stared into her eyes for a breath or two before answering:

"I already want you just as you are, Frey..." He murmured at the intimate volume appropriate to a man nose-to-nose with a woman, "But I understand, and of course I will. How could I not, after all, support such a brave choice?" He smiled warmly and glanced at her lips as he squeezed her waist in his hands. Her arms moved back down to his chest and tensed, but he made no effort to take a kiss she hadn't offered yet. "I am understanding more and more why I am drawn to you, Frey. I will do whatever I can for you..." His expression fell with a bitter realization as his voice faded on this last thought.

She knew what he was thinking. 'whatever he could do for her' presumably included helping her leave and getting her back to her people from. Fear showed in his eyes as he recognized her own shifting expression. But, she saw an answer now to the riddle that troubled him.

"If you liberate me from weakness by teaching me how to be of the desert," She said softly, "Then you will truly know when I stay that I chose to stay." The tension left him. He squeezed her in his big hands again, gently.

"That is true." He rumbled. "I don't need you to prove your strength, Frey... but if you need to for your own reasons... well, I can wait a little longer, I suppose." He smirked. She smiled, glancing at his mouth again. It would have been very easy to yield to this pull and bring her lips to his in this moment... but that was a step she wanted to take as equals, so she could wait, too.

She leaned into him, wrapping her arms about his collar and squeezing him as much as her weakened strength allowed, his arms shifted into a mirror of her embrace, pulling her close and pressing her against his broad chest with gentle insistence.

"Thank you." She whispered in his ear.

"You're welcome, Frey." he hummed, deep voice warm with happiness.

They stayed that way for a long, long moment, reluctant to release one another in equal measure, before he finally spoke again.

"We can start tomorrow evening, but you must rest until then while your body recovers. Don't try to do too much. There will be time." She nodded and he smiled approvingly, replacing both their breathing masks and coaxing her into lying down again while pulling the makeshift blankets over them again on the bedroll. This time as she curled up beside her unlikely companion she faced him, snuggling close and even going so far as to make a contented little sound as he wrapped a big arm around her and pulled her a little tighter against him. She slept, still exhausted but this time easy in her mind rather than merely defeated by fatigue.

When she woke, Frey immediately puzzled over the lack of a bulky body beside hers. She did not feel cold this time, despite the chilly night air brushing what little of her face was exposed between the forehead strap of the stillsuit and the breathing mask covering her nose and mouth.

Hadn't Bado mentioned something about the Fremen stillsuits insulating against the cold? It made sense, and suddenly she realized she hadn't needed him beside her to survive the night this time. She smiled to herself, knowing now his affection really was just that, not that she had particularly doubted it.

Then her brow furrowed and she tumbled into that same loop again:

'Am I crazy? This is crazy. This is... crazy... I can't stay out here and play house with a Fremen. I need to get back...' the thought trailed off as a dark, cruel part of her mind replied: 'Get back to what exactly? Lurking in hostile Harkonen bases, one wrong move away from being horribly tortured and murdered?' She covered her eyes with her palms and breathed deeply.

'It's alright. I don't have to go back... I have a choice. No matter what Hawat raised me to do... I have a choice...' She thought, not realizing at first that she was murmuring the words aloud until Bado's deep voice asked quietly from a couple meters away:

"It's okay to have doubts, Frey. Changing into something else isn't exactly easy." She flushed and looked down, her face red and her brows bent into an irritable angle.

"You shouldn't evesdrop." She muttered indignantly, shooting a very brief glare up at him.

"At people talking to themselves in my own home?" He asked, theatrically bending his wrist to touch his sternum with his fingertips in an incredulous caricature. "Pretty sure I'm basically within my rights this time." He added with a chuckle. Frey rolled her eyes at him. He laughed again, utterly unperturbed.

"Well? What are you going to teach me today?" She asked, trying to change the subject to more pertinent topics.

"You'll see but you'd better listen when I tell you to rest or you can forget about learning about the desert." He eyed her sternly, to which she responded by sighing loudly.

"As if you're giving me much of a choice." She muttered. He narrowed his eyes, unmoving. "Fine." She relented, "I'll stop for rest whenever you tell me to." His expression lightened and he nodded approvingly.

"Well then, Today I will teach you to walk." He said, grinning at her half-perplexed-half-annoyed look.

The big Fremen led his charge outside, giving her a hand up at the exit to the cavern so she didn't have to scramble as much. It was still before dawn, the night not yet spent, and the silvery twin-moonlight shone down on the crests of the dunes, lining them with bright light in the almost-silence of the night. Sandy wind rasped by, but aside from that nothing stirred.

Frey stood beside Bado and looked around until finally she realized he was waiting for eye contact. She gave him her attention and raised an expectant eyebrow. He gestured to the hidden cavern and the jutting rock formations around it, their bases obscured by sand below.

"You can't see it unless you know what that kind of rock looks like in higher-up places but there is a mountain beneath us."

"A mountain?" She replied skeptically, looking around at the vast flat landscape except for the sin-wave rise and fall of the dunes' profiles. He nodded seriously.

"The bowl of this valley is far beneath our feet. That is why this oasis is safe from all, even the little makers."

"Little makers?" She repeated quizzically.

"Shai Hulud's children." He replied as if she were silly for asking. She scowled slightly at him. He chuckled at her expense and at her expression. "'Worms' as your people call them, cannot travel through rock." He explained patiently, "This oasis will never be disturbed or devoured by sand worms because they cannot come to the mountain." Her eyebrows raised and she looked down again, visualizing a vast rock edifice buried beneath her feet.

"It's really all rock?" She asked. He nodded seriously. She looked around again at the largest spur of rock that had originally attracted her to his home when her thopter crashed a few dozen yards from here. "Like an iceberg..." She mumbled to herself.

"Iceberg? What is an ice berg?" He asked and she blinked at him, abashed.

"It's a huge chunk of frozen water floating in the ocean." She explained hastily to get through her embarrassment as quickly as possible, but winced as his brow furrowed further at the last word.

"Ocean?" He repeated in querical tones. She winced.

"It's a really large body of salt water on planets like Caladan..." She said quickly. His eyes grew large.

"Aah, right. I have heard of that. Maybe someday our Arakis will have an ocean, too." He said, a corner of his mouth quirking upward. She searched his eyes but found no jest there. Then she recalled his earlier mention of Liet's 'plan' concerning the oases. He was genuinely being optimistic, but how could 'Liet' possibly transform Arakis into a planet with oceans, regardless of his lofty aspirations and well-connected information network?

"A-anyway..." She hurried to course correct him. He obliged.

"So, here is a safe place to practice because we won't attract worms when you fail." He said matter-of-factly. The scowl returned to Frey's face. Bado didn't appear to notice, musing to himself: "Or rather, I'm sure we'll attract them, but they won't quite be able to get to us."

Suddenly as she looked down at his and her feet, wrapped in tight, flexible shoes with tough soles, his worn and battered, and hers new and untouched, a memory returned to her. Hanging limply over his shoulder and slipping in and out of a conscious but exhausted stupor, Frey remembered the arhythmia of his gait as he retreated from where she had slumped to the ground to watch the sand worm come engulf her.

"Most things that walk have an even gait, eh?" He said, cheerfully ushering her along a path of understanding. She nodded, straight-faced. "Well, that's because it's efficient for the walker, but that's exactly how Shai Hulud knows when you step into his realm."

"Wait wait wait." Frey interrupted, waving her hands. "Before we go any further, can I just ask: When you say 'Shai Hulud' are you talking about the worms? He blinked at her as if surprised at her asking such an obvious question, then nodded. "And when you say 'maker' you're also talking about the sand worms?" He nodded again and chuckled.

"The makers are not exactly Shai Hulud, but they're not not him either." He clarified, muddying the issue for her. She frowned at him. The big man only laughed. "For now, it's enough that you know what I point to with these names. The rest can wait for another day." She sighed through her nose and rolled her wrist, inviting him to resume his explanation. He nodded.

"The makers don't tolerate visitors. If they hear you through the ground they will come for you." She nodded gravely, remembering how quickly one had appeared to devour her when she'd run away the first morning after arriving here. "But," He added slyly, "Only if you sound like a living thing." She quirked an eyebrow at him.

"That's why you walk like you have snakes in your pants, huh?" She offered sarcastically.

"Only one, but it doesn't bite." He returned immediately, grinning mischievously at her, judging by the creasing of the crow's feet at his eyes and winking. Frey wrinkled her nose and made a disgusted sound, but he caught a glimpse of the smirk she couldn't quite suppress and he laughed a booming laugh at the desert sky.

The sound of that playful laugh sent a fluttering sensation through her and a giggle wiggled around in her throat, unvoiced. With a start, Frey realized such a thing could only mean she was feeling better than she had since coming here. She flexed her shoulders, feeling the slick tightness of the stillsuit beneath the loose blue garment, fashioned into a wrapped tunic at the moment, that Gaius had brought her. Regardless of what eerie tales were told of Fremen outside their desert, she could not deny they knew this land and how to survive in it. She returned her attention to him and voiced her anticipation of the lesson to come.

"So you're going to teach me how to walk without rhythm?" He nodded, something bright in his eyes as he did so.

"But, 'teach' is a loose definition in this case." He said, tilting his head. "It's simple enough in theory, just takes practice to train your feet to actually do it." She nodded vaguely, supposing she saw the sense in the comment. "Alright. Let me show you first."

The big man turned to orient himself along some imaginary line, and began the strange not-quite-dance of varied, uneven steps, hops, slides, and dragging lurches that produced no pattern, only random shift and scraping sounds of sand, easily excused in the imagination for the usual odd, incidental sounds of wind and rock and sand all throughout the desert. When he'd reached the end of a stretch about 20 meters or so, he called back to her.

"Now you, little one." One of Frey's ears twitched as her emotions wrestled over whether to be pleased or offended at the nickname, but mostly she tried to focus on beginning her own awkward trek toward him.

Step-hop-slide-hop-step-step-drag..." She was just trying to distract herself from thinking about how much like an idiot she looked by wondering how she'd know whether she was doing it well enough when a rumbling burst far off to the west made her turn her head.

In the distance, almost disappearing on the horizon, a plume of sand jetted skyward as the gaping maw of a sand worm, a 'maker' as he had called them, breached the surface and plunged down into the ground again, angling in their direction now. Frey swallowed, suddenly trembling. In her life as a spy, she'd faced hundreds of dangerous situations and moments more immediately threatening than this, if Bado's explanation about the mountain of rock beneath them could be believed, but there was nothing quite like becoming the mouse to a cat so large and determined to swallow her whole.

"There now." Bado called from 12 meters away, now. "You see he is always listening for you. You have to be smart like I know you are, Frey. Now, come the rest of the way to me." WIth an effort, She wrenched her gaze away from the oncoming worm and back to her erstwhile teacher, still shaking as she forced herself to continue on, minding the timing now as well as the type of step she took.

Step-hop...drag-hop-slide... step...hop-hop...slide-step-hop... She took her time, chewing her lip as every distant sound of sand made her hair try its level best to stand on end. She had devoted her focus so completely to her ahrythmic progress toward him that she didn't realized she'd arrived where Bado stood until his large hands gently gripped her shoulders, staying her from running right into his broad chest. He chuckled softly.

"Very good." He rumbled, then gestured out to the west. She looked out over the sand, following his hand until she realized the worm's path was no longer in evidence. She glanced up at his blue, blue eys.

"It's still out there, though, right?" He nodded.

"Yes. He is listening underground now, holding very still. He knows we are here but he lost the trail. You did well." He added warmly, making her cheeks color as she glanced away, abashedly.

Always during her training, Frey had driven herself to leave blood, sweat, and tears on the floor mats against Gurney Halleck or one of Thufir Hawat's other hand-picked trainees. She strove hard for the least approval or praise from her teachers, and when she won some scrap of recognition it had stoked the fires in her to try even harder.

Once she had even sparred with Paul Atreides, Duke Leito's son, whom Gurney was also in charge of training. The old warrior had laughed approvingly when she'd pinned Paul in the first round, but the lad's anger had spiked and he had knocked her flat in the following clash, earning scorn from his teacher for letting emotion get the better of him in combat. Neither had spoken a word to her as she retched and struggled to remain upright on her elbows, the concussion he'd dealt her confusing her senses just enough that she hadn't cried until the shame caught up with her in her quarters after she'd been dismissed as unable to fight for the rest of the day.

But this felt nothing like the starved way she'd eaten up any note of approval in her teachers' voices back then. The warm glow in her chest as this big Fremen man smiled down at her had nothing in common with those days.

"Are you ready to go again?" He asked in encouraging tones.

The once-spy nodded, determination sparkling in her eyes.


	9. A Dream of Rain

What Frey had not expected was her mind to tire before her limbs did. An hour or so after they'd begun, the maker had tracked her ever movement on the last run, rumbling and spitting sand at the outer rim of the rock area around the Oasis. She growled her frustration and turned to make another attempt, but Bado's big hand squeezed her shoulder firmly, staying her from moving forward.

"That's enough for now, Frey. We can try again later." She glared at him over her shoulder, her voice impatient as she spat:

"I almost had it before! I just need to--"

"No." Bado said firmly, the sudden stone of his voice snapping her out of her agitation. She stared at him as he took a slow breath and added, "In time, it will become a thoughtless act, but right now it takes all of your focus to do this thing. We'll use the rest of your body's energy tending the Oasis for now, then after we rest, you can try again when your mind is refreshed." They stared at one another for several breaths before Frey shot one last bitter glance at the maker in the distance and grumbled her reluctant assent.

Light crested over the dunes as dawn announced itself in golden radiance that promised the deadly scorching heat to come in just a few hours. Together, the unlikely pair checked on all the desert succulents in Bado's little oasis, unburying the littlest specimens the desert wind had managed to cover, and straightening any dew collectors that had begun to lean too far in one direction.

Just before full daylight, he ushered her into the rocky den that was his home and they shared a small meal. During the hottest part of the day, they slept in the relatively cool comfort of the underground cavern, curled side by side. Perhaps this was only out of habit, but if she were honest with herself, Frey would have to admit she simply liked having him close and didn't want to stop now that circumstance didn't require it. At dusk they crept out into the dying light and continued practicing her walk against the painted violet backdrop of sunset-bathed dunes.

In this way a pattern settled in. Over the following days she grew stronger, fully recovered from the dehydration she'd suffered during the first week. When she was rested, she could dance across even the drum sand at the boundary between the underground mountain and the sea of loose substrate that housed the makers without stirring a one. But still, she could not manage the counterintuitive, rhythmless gait if her mind grew fatigued. Bado assured her it was something that would come with time, and in between these lessons, he gave her others.

He showed her the many types of sand in the desert, explaining how to walk across pea-sand, how to spot drum sand at a distance, and which kinds of sand were most likely to harbor the dangerous pre-spice masses that could swallow up any person above them when the little makers succeeded in converting them with an explosive climax. He taught her the names of the animals of the desert, what they ate, and which of them could be eaten. He took her to the edge of a pre-spice mass, explaining that no matter the danger in doing so now, she had to know the scent of it to protect herself in future. He taught her water discipline and he taught her the ways of the desert plants they raised together.

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. Darting over dunes and climbing the rock spires where the mountain broke the surface of the great sea of sand made the already wiry muscles of her lean limbs whipcord strong. Soon she could move silently to all creatures, even Shai Hulud. She could climb a sheer cliffside with rapid confidence, and she could hunt and catch any of the small prey of the desert.

But, to her continuous surprise, in all that time, Bado the Fremen oasis sentinal never made a move to actualize the mutual attraction between them. Of course he knew by now as well as she did why she insistently cuddled close while they slept despite the heat of midday. After all, how could he not? And of course he could not have forgotten the almost-kiss they'd shared when first she'd asked him to teach her to be a dweller of the desert. Despite all this, he did not touch her or speak to her in any more intimate manner than she'd asked for, even when wrestling through their occasional sparring matches.

Infuriatingly, Frey could not decide whether this was an impressive show of restraint or merely a loss of interest on his part. The longer he stayed by her side without any show of hunger for her, the more the voice of doubt gnawed at her.

"So, what will you teach me today?" She asked in the usual way one evening as they came out of the cavern to begin their nightly work. He looked at her and smiled a nostalgic little smile while she returned him a puzzled expression from where she perched on one of the stout rock spires, putting her at eye level with him.

"You are already of Arakis, little one. What you learn from here you'll learn from the desert. I can show you no more... unless you choose to stay." She blinked at him. Had she not demonstrated her willingness to stay here by doing so up until now? With a pang, Frey realized the big man had not ventured to assume she'd choose this life once equipped to escape it. Then, with an even sharper spur to her heart, she realized she had not actually chosen yet. She looked down at her feet.

Oh, she had certainly told herself she'd stay in those moments when his kindness and the depths of his care for her well-being overwhelmed her, but saying you will make a certain choice and doing it when the time really came were quite different, she now realized. Frey swallowed as she confronted the question in her mind, and she spoke quietly:

"You think I could go if I wanted to now? That I'd survive the trip to the nearest outpost?"

"Yes." He said quietly, the basso rumble of his voice prepared for disappointment.

"And you'd let me go, even though I know so much about your people now?" She added cautiously.

"Yes." He echoed.

"Would not the others kill you for something like that?"

"Probably." He allowed, tone never changing though a little smile played about the corners of his eyes.

"Then why would you do it?" She returned, voice hard.

"Because I couldn't kill you, Frey. Not now." He said solemnly. "Not if it meant my life ended, not at the behest of Liet and all my Fremen brothers and sisters."

"You're not a terribly good Fremen are you?" She murmured hesitantly. He chuckled.

"No, but I told you that when we first met, so it's hardly my fault if you're just figuring this out now." He smiled at her, then his expression fell into something more neutral and he reached up and divested himself of his breathing mask. She stared at him as he matched her gaze, the time-won scars of the noseplugs and breathing mask marking the tanned skin of his face in a way that would match her own visage in time, she mused. "In you I found something beautiful; something worth preserving. I want you to live, Frey. And, I'll do whatever I can to keep you alive." Frey winced and stared obliquely at him.

"What could you possibly have found that's so valuable in me?" She asked in pained disbelief. He gestured to her with that same mild, affectionate smile.

"This... would never have been possible if you hadn't believed it was. You believed my words and my intentions. You believed a Fremen could be more than the kind of monster your people tell stories about. You believed I could help you and that I would... and you believed you could be more than you were and that I meant it when I told you I'd show you how." He took a long breath and locked eyes with her again, something vulnerable in his now. "You are incredible, Frey, for being what you are. I came out to this place because there was nothing I believed in like I believe in you now, and so it has been worth it. Even if you leave, it was worth it." Frey stared at him, trying without success to absorb his words. She glanced away, swallowing around a tightened throat, and saying nothing.

"And..." He added in his basso voice after a moment, "I won't just let you go, Frey. I'll take you there, if you want me to."

"Why?" She rasped, still choked.

"Because I'd need to. Not for you, particularly. You're more than capable of doing it on your own now, but... I wouldn't feel content if I didn't make sure you arrived safely back with your people." Frey blinked and licked her lips as she looked out over the sand, violet and blue in the night's colors.

"If you're willing to go so far... you could keep going... you could run with me." She said quietly, hesitation in her voice.

Bado sighed softly, a small, sad smile on his lips.

"I make a poor Fremen, you're quite right about that, Frey... But I'd make an even worse offworlder."

"Why?" She challenged, voice still quiet, "You're skilled. I'm sure we could hold our own together." She let her eyes return to his and held that blue gaze for several heartbeats. In truth, she did not fully understand why she was asking these questions. She didn't particularly want to return to her old life, and even less to convert him to it, placing him in the same abominable risk she'd lived in as a spy. It had been easy to say she'd become a woman of the desert beside him on this wild, feral planet when she'd had no choice, but now that she had the ability to leave... now that no one and nothing was keeping her from going back except her own reluctance it felt perilous to truly set her feet on one if the divergent paths before her. As she struggled with this truth, her captor-turned-companion spoke again.

"All I was ever truly good at was fighting. All Fremen must learn to fight, but I have always been particularly gifted as a warrior." He stared into her eyes as he spoke, something sad in his spice-blue ones as he spoke now: "But I came out here to this place, this little haven, and planted my oasis to escape all that if I could. I daresay my skills would enable me to forge a path in your world... might even be successful or lucrative," he allowed, shrugging, "but my heart would be dying by degrees, like it was before I came out here." Frey's brow curved as she stared at the huge, muscular man of the desert, struck silent by this admission. He gestured to himself.

"I could not stay myself if I go there, Frey... if this man is who you wish to be beside... it must be here, on Arakis... and in the realm of Shai Hulud." She stared at him, lips parting to speak but her voice wouldn't come yet. She reached out, fingers gently plying his, lifting his hand between them and pressing her palm to his. Their fingers straightened and her tiny, slender hand fit wholly within the silhouette of his huge, angular one.

"I don't want to leave..." She whispered, staring first at their hands and then into his eyes again. They seemed to glow faintly in the night, blue stars in the blackness of the cosmos, "But... never going back? If I choose to be Fremen, to be here... I will never belong anywhere else." He nodded solemnly.

"It's your choice, Frey." He murmured, "No one says you have to make it right now."

"Right..." She exhaled, looking down. She let her hand fall away from his and he reached out and squeezed her shoulder, the reassurance of his strength and his warmth rushing into her at the touch. They stood another long moment together before she raised her head at a scuffling sound near the perimeter of the rock formation. She glanced at him and he nodded just as the pair of them refitted their breathing masks and stole silently through the night toward the sound in unison.

The pair hunted and foraged for most of the night, frosted with silver moonlight as each took his or her cues wordlessly from the other, so accustomed by now to this task that one might think them able to hear each other's thoughts.

They accumulated their kill and foraged goods in the little cavern and spend the coldest part of the night preserving and preparing the food, eating, and thinking, each secluded in his or her own thoughts as their earlier conversation settled like a thin layer of snow between them. Later they tended the oasis together, and as Frey paused at the edge of the cluster of desert plants, she smiled softly down at a specific succulent, slow growing but resilient, that she'd seen and touched the first time he'd taken her out here.

At that time it had reached it's fleshy, wedge-shaped stalks skyward from a height of no more than her ankles. Now it brushed the back of her knees if she walked too close. The whole oasis had grown, in fact. The tiny cluster of plants had become a dense, peculiar desert orchard, bearing the strange, colorful but barbed cactus fruits and flowers.

Bado came to stand beside her and brushed her arm gently with the backs of his fingers. Such intimate little gestures probably should still have seemed strange to her. If anyone else at all had been present she'd have squirmed to have them see him show her such physical tokens of affection so casually. But all the same, she doubted very much she'd like being without his gentle touch, now that she'd known it these past months.

She turned and followed him back to the cavern as the sun rose over the curved horizon, illuminating the wisps of sand the wind blew over the crests of the dunes. sunlight spread like liquid gold over the desert carpet of sand. Frey stared out at the fiery blaze of the Arakian sunrise and let the beauty and color of it wash over her for a moment more before finally descending back into the cavern that had become her home here.

Inside he wordlessly reclined onto the bedroll, one arm waiting patiently to wrap around her when she deigned to join him.

The once-spy curled up beside the big man as she did every day, sleeping away the heat and discomfort of the scorching desert daylight nestled against his bulky body. She cuddled close to him and watched dust motes drift in a shaft of daylight and listened to his breathing as he drifted off to sleep.

She thought of home... a world of green and blue; a world of water and life; a world so utterly different from this one she could not imagine Arakis becoming a place with features in common with Caladan. But that was the dream she'd shared in as she carefully unburied tiny budding cacti and diligently checked dew collectors every waking day in this burning wasteland. How could sand and dust become soil and grass? And how could a solitary Fremen misfit and a lost Arakian spy become more together than they'd ever been apart?

The blurred, intoxicating drift of sleep dragged her under as Frey felt these thoughts unfold.

She opened her eyes as the bleak white light of an overcast sky caressed her, pulling all the color out of the shadows except for the green.

Green... everything beyond her arms' reach was green, lush, and vibrantly alive. The warm, humid moisture of Caladan's laden air slipped into her lungs, bringing with it the scent and taste of home as she looked around her. glass and steel and foliage formed a quiet, solitary corner of a greenhouse all around her. She'd been here countless times before... every moment she was at liberty she tended plants in the greenhouse on house Atreides' ancestral land. The compound was nestled in a lush four-hundred-acre parcel of land, virtually filled with every tree, vine, and flower one could imagine, but even more species of plant dwelt in the greenhouse, the pet projects of lady Jessica and Frey herself.

She blinked as her ears registered a sound infinitely familiar and comforting to her. The staccato patter of rain on the glass panels of the greenhouse breathed its steady rhythm from all around her. She drew in a careful breath and closed her eyes, savoring that sound; millions of thousands of droplets tumbling from the heavens to quench and nurture everything and everyone under the cloudy Caladan sky.

She smiled, slowly at first; the dawning familiarity tugging the corners of her lips as she felt a rush of joy and relief. She wanted to listen to the rain forever... no, she wanted to do more than that. She wanted to feel the rain kiss her skin and pull down her long hair in sodden strands dripping with blessed, pure, life-giving water! And most of all, this joy that bubbled over in her centered on introducing the first touch she'd really loved, that of the rain of her homeworld, to the first person that had truly loved her.

"Bado! let's go outsi-" She began, but faltered and stopped as she realized she was alone. No tall, bearded man with otherworldly blue eyes had ever stood beneath the grey Caladan sky or been bathed in cool Caladanian rain.

Frey's eyes snapped open and she gasped as the always brown and gold and red of the sand and stone of Arakis surrounded her field of vision. Confusion buffeted her like an alien wind. Something was suffocating her, clinging with eerie suction to every part of her skin except her face and hands. She clawed clumsily at a plastic fixture strapped across her nose and mouth. None of it had been there a moment before, when she was ready to run outside and feel the rain on her skin.

"Frey! Frey, calm down! You're alright. You're safe." A deep, breathy voice sounded from somewhere very close. Strong hands gripped her wrists gently but firmly and a masked face with vivid blue eyes appeared nose-to-nose with hers.

"Bado?" She panted, stilling instantly in his grasp as the face she'd expected to see back in the greenhouse triggered recognition in her mind.

"I'm here, Frey." He breathed. "You're alright. It was only a dream."

A dream... a dream of home and greenery and rain...

"Bado..." She whispered, more calmly now, and her mind began to piece together the incongruities.

This man did not-could not exist where Caladan's rain fell. The ache of missing that embodiment of home suddenly paled in stark contrast to the stab of shock and grief she'd felt as she'd realized he could not possibly be sitting there beside her in the greenhouse amongst the thirsty jungle plants and flowers.

She fumbled at her breathing mask as she gasped for breath, suddenly feeling suffocated by the thing that preserved her against water loss and eventual death in the bone-dry Arakian air. His thick fingers found the fastens and helped her out of it. She sat up and so did he beside her, peeling off his own mask and cradling her face, his expression worried.

"Frey? What's the matter?"

She stared into those blue within blue eyes, strained with concern for her, and all at once she knew which touch she truly could no longer imagine living without. Her eyes widened and she stared at him, her breath slowing in her chest.

"Frey?" he entreated.

"I love you." She said in a tone of sudden realization, a pure statement of inarguable fact that had dawned in her mind with such clarity that she gave voice to it without conscious thought. Bado's breath stopped as his blue, blue eyes widened. Just as his jaw dropped, parting his lips slightly in a tiny soundless syllable of surprise, a dam burst within her, the flood of feeling drowning out any possible voice of hesitation or doubt. She kissed him.

His lips tensed momentarily in surprise, then melted against hers an instant later. The warmth and softness and gentle pressure swept her under a tide of instantaneously intoxicating pleasure. She closed her eyes just as she had to devote all her senses to hearing and feeling the rain in her dream. Now she devoted every nerve, every thought to experiencing him now that she'd whole-heartedly embraced her desire to take this man who'd uttered those words to her months ago when she'd hesitated a breath away from his mouth...

'And what if I choose this?' She'd asked in a whisper he could surely feel slip into his own mouth as he quietly breathed in her words back then.

'Then I would be yours.' He had said without any hesitation at all, without any promise or assurance from her.

Now she gave him her assurance as she leaned into him, hands pressed against his chest, lips feverishly seeking his, pressing, plucking, seeking, showing... She gave him every drop of her resolve as she kissed him again and again. His big hands wrapped around her and pressed her to him as he mirrored her eagerness.

"Bado!" She gasped in between kisses as she leaned further over and into him. He rolled onto his back and she rolled with him, straddling the big man as he welcomed her fervent desire with equal excitement.

"Frey-" he breathed "It feels as though I've loved you all of my life and even before that. I was always meant to love you, Frey." At his words a stronger surge of elation blended with desire bloomed in her chest and she plied him even more urgently, their mouths pressed together again and again, the salt of his skin on her tongue, and his trembling breath in her ears.

She fumbled at his collar, wrestling with his clothing and the sealing straps of his stillsuit, dying to gain access to more of him as she slipped her tongue into his mouth.

He tensed abruptly and his strong hands released her waist and seized her wrists, holding her tight and immobile. He broke off the kiss and let his head tilt back, resting on the rolled fabric he used for a pillow and panting, his brow furrowed in determined concentration, eyes closed as if struggling with some pain or confusion.

"F-frey... stop... don't..." He gasped.

"I want you." She whispered urgently "I choose you, Bado. I'm not leaving. Everything I want is here in this desert. I don't need to be anyone else but who I've been here with you." She stared at him in suspense, hoping she'd managed to assuage the doubts that had spurred him to stop her outpouring of desire for him. Surely if he wanted her, he'd want this, wouldn't he?

"I know, love. I believe you." He breathed, a hint of a laugh in his hushed voice. "But we don't have enough water out here to replace what we'll lose if I let you strip us down." She stilled in surprise, grasping in words rather than unrecognized desire what she'd been hoping for when her fingers had begun to undress him. "It's hard enough to keep myself in check without your hands under my suit, beloved." He added with a weak laugh. "I'll come undone if you don't stop... and I don't want to put you at risk."

"I'm sorry." She whispered, relaxing in his grasp as her fever deflated.

"Don't be." He replied, and kissed her lips gently. "I've been granted my greatest wish this night. I have never been happier, Frey."

"Me too." She said, smiling involuntarily. he released her wrists and wrapped her up in his arms. She returned the embrace and nuzzled him as she swam in the euphoria of her absolute faith in her love for this man and his for her.

"I'll find a way to get us the water. You won't have to wait long, beloved. Perhaps we'll go to the Sietch together, eh?" He murmured, stroking her slowly as she lay with him, limbs entangled and overlapping in their mutual desire to maximize contact between them.

"Perhaps tomorrow?" She murmured sleepily in reply.

"Whatever you wish, love. I'll chart my road by your stars."

Frey smiled and nuzzled further into the hollow of his collar and neck. Bado curled more insistently around her.

Their fatigue and the desire to hide away from the world in their newfound paradise of honest intimacy rapidly blended with oncoming sleep. They dozed, still giving gentle caresses to each other until both grew still but for the gentle deep breathing each performed unconsciously in unison with the other.


	10. Harbinger

Nothing could have made starker contrast to the peaceful, affectionate context of falling asleep in her Fremen lover's arms earlier that day than the manner in which Frey was now jarred out of consciousness.

She was vaguely aware through a sudden confusion of her inner ear that she had been hurled through the air. But, that thought made way instantly for the pain of striking the rock wall of the cavern with her entire body at once. Nothing but that electric agony occupied her mind in the following instants until she heard the basso voice of the man she'd come to love give a strangled shout and adrenaline lanced trough every inch of her body. Her eyes snapped open and she saw Bado locked in the clumsy, grappling, close quarters combat with a long-haired man in a Harkonen uniform very nearly as tall as himself.

Evidently the attacker had flung her aside to get the full advantage of a surprise attack on whom he took to be the more dangerous of the pair of lovers. The stranger had hooked an arm around Bado's throat and completed the choke-hold by folding his free arm over the other wrist, straddling the larger man's back and determined to strangle him into unconsciousness.

"NO!" Frey screamed in a voice that was nothing but wrath and the wild, tearing snarl of a jaguar from the jungles of her homeworld. She lunged toward the pair of struggling men, each twice her weight and more if they were a kilogram.

The intruder snarled and released one of his arms to draw and whip a throwing knife at the woman charging him. Frey threw herself to the side in the same instant Bado got his feet under him, sprang upward and reached behind his head, seizing great handfuls of the man's hair and clothing and flipping the man over himself to throw him down onto the stone before him. Frey heard the clatter of the throwing knife hitting the rock wall and the crunch of the man's ribs cracking, but as she looked up to see Bado thrust his big foot down to stomp his heel into the man's throat, she gasped in terror and rage.

The Harkonen jerked his head and shoulders sideways and grasped Bado's other foot in both hands, yanking it out from under him and sending the bigger man to the ground beside him. Frey darted forward again and snatched two fistfuls of the intruder's hair in her own small fists and yanked his head backward just as he whipped a knife form his belt in a flash of steel and gold and black lacquered hilt.

The stranger snarled and threw an elbow back into Frey's breathing mask, jamming the cover into her nose and making her face sting and burn. The breathing mask cracked but her nose did not break. She grunted in shock and pain but refused to let go of the man's hair, he writhed suddenly, bringing his empty hand, now a fist, to bear directly into her belly, knocking the wind out of the little spy and sending her tumbling several feet away. As she scrambled senselessly to her hands and knees and tried desperately not to wretch she heard as if from a long way away her own desert man roar a challenge full of his own rage as he launched a counterattack with his bone-white knife.

The stranger had gained his feet somewhere in the instants intervening striking her and Bado's charge and the pair were clashing with a ferocity rarely seen, even in the context of battlefields and street fights. Frey's eyes swam with stinging tears as she struggled around her bruised diaphragm to gain a breath. Through the blood-tint and spots in her vision she saw the pair of fighting men exchange blows once, twice, three times. The black and gold knife of the attacker flashed across Bado's left arm, opening a shallow gash that dotted the ground with droplets of blood. Bado's knife bit into the man's thigh and nicked his wrist in two of the clashes, and his own breathing mask was struck from his face by a left hook the stranger threw into his jaw. Bado returned a kick to the other man's stomach in reply to the punch, and the two men staggered back for the barest instant before leaping at one another again.

Just as the intruder braced himself to lunge at Bado, Frey saw a flash of reflected light from his right foot as the man deployed by way of some specific placement of weight and strain a hidden dagger in the toe of his boot, not long, but counting on a surprised victim to take the damage in an unguarded place. The Harkonen feinted right, then sprang to the left, Knife jumping from one hand to another, then as Bado caught the knife hand in his wrist and slashed down at the man's neck and shoulder with his own knife, the man dropped his weight and launched a kick from the foot bearing the dagger. Bado roared in pain and wrath as the little knife bit into his thigh, missing a killing blow with his kris knife and tumbling into another grapple with the man.

The bone-white knife skittered away across the stone floor as they hit the ground, struck from his hand on impact and came to rest within reach of Frey where she fought to get even a single breath. She scrambled and crawled toward the fallen weapon, gritting her teeth as her vision closed into a tunnel around the periphery.

Back across the cavern Bado had wrestled the black knife from the intruder and was pressing it gradually toward the other man's throat, much of his weight as well as his formidable musculature behind it. The other man struggled against his strength, their arms shuddering with effort against one another, but the knife point grew closer by degrees to his throat. With a snarl and a surge of effort he'd been holding back, the intruder forced the blade aside just enough that the edge slit a cut in his cheek but did no more harm. He thrashed in a lightning quick motion, his arms flashing up toward his own hair and then whipping around Bado's throat as he rolled and writhed into a more advantageous position. A dry, choked sound, not the sort made voluntarily by any creature, escaped Bado's throat as his face contorted into a snarl of pain.

Frey's eyes widened as she saw a narrow black line across his throat, a steel wire the man had secreted on his person to kill by surprise when he seemed unarmed. Bado had managed to bring one forearm up under the wire before the stranger had succeeded in pulling it around the bigger man's throat completely, but he was still being strangled despite this hindrance. The bigger man bludgeoned his attacker's chest and sides with his free elbow, but the stranger held on tight, twining his legs around Bado's to stop him from wriggling into better leverage against him. A handful of eternity-long seconds passed as Bado's face purpled, his wrist and neck beginning to bleed where the strangling wire pressed and sawed into his flesh during the struggle. The pair wrestled and writhed about, turning their backs to Frey in the mayhem momentarily.

That was the instant Frey's lungs ceased their helpless spasms and gasped in an adrenaline-charged gulp of air. Her hand found Bado's kris knife and she sprang up and flashed forward, closing the distance in three frantic heartbeats. She snatched another fistful of the attacker's long hair to ground her aim and with a sudden burst of strength born from the terrible fear of losing the love she'd only just found for the first time in her life, she slammed the white knife into the stranger's neck at the base of his skull, twisted it with a jerk of her whole arm, and ripped it back out in a spray of blood and pale semi-clear fluid.

The intruder melted into the ragdoll-limp instant death his severed spinal column bestowed on him and the cable around Bado's throat slackened in his boneless grasp. Bado disentangled himself, threw aside the knife and gasped in a rasping breath, belling out his ribs with the immenseness of that first gasp of air, then he coughed violent, wracking, inhuman sounding coughs as he slumped to his side on the stone floor.

Frey helped disentangle the limbs of the corpse from her lover as best she could and scrambled on violently shaking limbs over him, checking him for any injuries requiring immediate care. He coughed and coughed, face still red, eyes winced shut as he struggled for breath. She ran her fingers around his neck and wrist. Somehow, the blood had already clotted and dried where the wire had begun to cut into him, looking for all the world like an injury already an hour old, rather than one inflicted mere seconds ago. She checked the gash in his arm, similarly closed already, and the puncture wound in the thick muscle of his thigh. All the bleeding had already stopped, and all appeared to be flesh wounds only.

Frey sighed out a trembling breath and bent over him, setting her palms at either side of his face and called his name in a breathless, insubstantial voice.

"Bado! Bado, by the great mother say something!" The familiar large hands of her lover crept up to her sides and squeezed for a moment before he sat upright all at once and gripped her in a tight embrace, frantic with the blend of relief and leftover fear that always follows such a scare. He pressed her to him as he forced his head sideways and did his best to cough away from her face.

"Fre-ey" He rasped in between coughs, his body shuddering against hers as the muscles of his chest and sides spasmed with the effort. Finally, after several more seconds of wracked, exhausted coughing, he cracked an eyelid, turned his face to hers and locked eyes with her. "Y-you... ok-kay?" He croaked, voice a shamble of it's usual deep-timbered resonance. She huffed a little laugh and drooped with relief.

"Yeah..." She whispered, "I"m fine... just some bruises." He nodded, stifling a couple more weakened coughs quietly in his throat as he did so.

"Nothing... broken?" He inquired, feeling his way around her ribs with his big hands, squeezing and prodding experimentally. She caught up his big hands with her small ones and squeezed them.

"No, I'm in better shape than after the thopter crash. Don't worry." She wasn't looking forward to feeling the bruises up and down the side of her that had struck the wall, not to mention her abdomen, but the apprehension of that pain was nothing to the relief at seeing him whole and mostly unharmed.

"Ah, Frey..." He wheezed, "I th-hought..." She pressed her fingers against his mouth and shook her head, fighting back tears with the months of training he'd given her against unnecessary loss of water. He hugged her again and she returned the embrace, the pair greedily clutching at one another for the security and reassurance of the solid presence of the other, desperate to prove to themselves that their partner was alright.

"I'm alright." She whispered in his ear, "I'm fine." She chanted this reassurance in breathy exhalations as she held him tightly, wincing when he coughed or at the rasp of his damaged voice when he did speak.

"You were already a fighter before you came to me." He murmured some moments later, his voice amused. "I didn't teach you that." She assumed he meant the killing blow she'd dealt the intruder, severing the spinal column with one quick thrust of the knife in her hand. The little former spy shrugged.

"I was raised to kill other spies." She explained simply in a quiet voice. "You won't be so pleased when you realize I have no idea how to cook." She smirked. Bado grinned and began a laugh that instantly turned into another fit of coughing, but he waved off her fretful hands, shaking his head.

"I'm fine, love." He assured her, "I'll sound rough for a little while, but I'll feel well enough in a day or so. No need to worry." He leaned in and kissed her lips, his big hands searching her ribs again for breaks despite her earlier assurance. She wasn't sure whether he intended this as subterfuge, but she didn't question it. It would hardly be fair to judge, when she couldn't help but look worriedly at the red marks around his neck and wrist where the wire had been pressed into his skin.

He looked over at the corpse of the intruder and his face flickered into an combination of alarm and disgust.

"Why hasn't he stopped bleeding?" The big man muttered. Frey looked curiously at the dead man, noting the relatively small amount of blood spilled with this type of killing blow. The instant brain death usually stopped the heart quickly enough that any wound not encouraged by gravity shed little blood compared to a sliced throat or a stab wound to the heart or inner thigh. She looked back at his various wounds, all closed and stopped before she'd even reached him and put his reaction together with this evidence.

"Fremen blood must clot quickly." She said quietly. Then she gestured to the intruder. "An offworlder's blood runs longer from a wound. It is the same for me." He looked surprised at her and then back at the stranger.

"He's from a world like yours then?"

"I don't know..." She replied, squinting at the corpse. Where in the galaxy was this dead stranger from? He didn't look like any Harkonen she'd seen before, despite the uniform. Frey extended a leg and turned the stranger's body over, squinting at his features. His long dark hair was unlike the soldiers or assassins she'd seen amongst her enemy. She plucked up the wire still partially entwined with the man's fingers and inspected it. Something nagged at the back of her mind for a moment of uneasy deja vu, then her eyes snapped wide open and she scrambled about the disordered belongings in the cave, strewn about and knocked asunder in the fight, searching with frantic hands outstretched.

"Frey?" Bado rasped, "What is it?" His eyes followed her in fatigued confusion. She froze as she found the dagger the intruder had swiped at Bado during the fight. Her hands shook as she picked it up and showed Bado the emblem in gold upon the black lacquered hilt of the thing.

Her lover blinked at her, uncomprehending, but his brow furrowed and he grew tense as he recognized her alarm.

"Frey? What's the matter?" He implored.

"T-this..." Frey held out the knife, "Is the symbol of the Padishah Emperor..." She swallowed, trembling with the sudden realization, the magnitude of this fact that was staring her in the face through the eyes of the dead man on the cavern floor and the dagger he'd pointed at her lover. "The emperor is allied with the Harkonen... The Atreides... Dune... All of this was a trap." She gasped. "This man is a sardaukar."

"So?" Bado replied, face worried despite his words. "What do the politics of offworlders and emperors matter to us?" There was something almost frantically hopeful behind his voice, so that the words Frey spoke next burned her throat as she whispered them.

"I have to go back..." Her gaze was distant, focused on people and places thousands of miles and away, perhaps even on other worlds. She could not know now, after months marooned in the desert, whether Duke Leito's family had already come to this hellish planet where the jaws of their enemy were already prepared to close on them. Even so, she had to try, had to warn them if she could. How could she stay out of it knowing what she did? This information could be the difference between life and death for the entire house she'd been raised and trained to serve.

Bado's blue, blue eyes searched her face and the agony of who she'd been clashing with who she'd become burned Frey from the inside out at the loss in his gaze as he registered her words.

"I-I have to-" She shook her head, "They don't kn-now I have to warn them Ihaveto..." She stopped and swallowed as she realized she was babbling. She forced herself to breath and try again, grasping Bado's hands as she explained more clearly: "The Atreides... Duke Leito, Lady Jessica, their son Paul... Thufir Hawat and Gurney Halleck. They might all be killed if they aren't warned, Bado. The family and house I served as a spy might come to ruin and it will be my fault if I don't bring them this intelligence." He squeezed her hands, pain in his eyes.

"You don't know what's gone on these past months out there." He murmured. "It may not be unknown to them by now."

"I have to know..." She replied quietly, desperate for him to understand. "I will come back. I don't intend to stay apart from you, Bado..." He gave a faltering smile, clearly trying at bravery even as his heart was sinking, sinking into the ocean of sand soon to be be between them if indeed she left. "I'll come back." She insisted, resting her forehead against his. His eyes closed and his mouth tightened, throat twitching as he swallowed.

He must have known, just as she did. He must have known that if what she feared had already come to pass, she was walking into a certain death. As soon as she set foot back into the cities of a Harkonen-controlled Arakis she was as good as dead. It would take a miracle to see her safely returned to the desert oasis where she'd unbelievably met the man she now loved. But how could she stay now, knowing what she did, and let her love be polluted by the fear and regret, forever wondering if she'd killed the Duke and his family by her reluctance to do her duty to them?

"I will get you back to them." Bado murmured. Frey looked up at him, eyes threatening to water despite her careful resistance. He nodded slowly. "I'll take you back. But," He added, glancing over at the body of the intruder. "There are things we need to do first." Her gaze followed his to the corpse and she looked back at him questioningly.

"His water?" She inquired quietly. Bado nodded, then one side of his mouth pulled into a smile. "It's yours. You defeated him." Her mouth fell open.

"But--" He interrupted her, raising a hand to stay her protests.

"This is the way. You won the water in his body by killing him. Plus, you saved me, Frey." The smile widened and grew softer, more affectionate. "Do not try to tell me that you do not deserve it along with my gratitude."

"You need it more..." She countered, shaking her head.

"No." He replied, "You'll need every drop to trade for transport. The fastest way back will be by thopter. My tribe does not have many." Frey bit her lip silently. She had nothing to counter this argument, but she hated to leave him with nothing but the memory of her and new scars from the fight with the intruder.

"Come," He said, standing up. "We have to send for the tribe. We have to go to the Sietch to deliver the body but we'll need help to do it. From there we can try to get you a ride out of the desert." Frey's eyes followed him, her heart a storm of conflicting desires and obligations.

"Bado..." She called quietly. He turned and looked at her, the sadness of impending separation described clearly in his spice-blue eyes. "I don't want to leave you."

"I know, love." He replied softly, extending a hand to help her up. The gesture transitioned seamlessly into a hug, just as tight as the terrified moments following the fight with the sardaukar killer but full of regret and sorrow now, as opposed to relief.


	11. Rings

Frey stood up from where she had been crouching, pushing the last of the extra dew collectors into the ground around the plants of the oasis. She reached up and adjusted the nose plugs of her stillsuit mask, her Fremen clothing whipping about her in the wind. Over where the cavern entrance lay, disguised by the features of the rock formation on top of it, Bado appeared, cloaked in travelling clothes with his hood pulled up. A long, dark bundle hung over his shoulder; the corpse of the sardokar, wrapped and bound in the rest of the fabric from the cavern scrap pile stitched together. The big man--her man--stooped and deposited the bundled body on the sand in front of the cavern.

Frey looked around her once more at the plants, then walked over to him, moving slowly as he had taught her to do during the heat of midday. Raising one's internal temperature by elevating the heart rate could cook a person alive in their stillsuit during the hottest part of the Arakian day. There was a reason Fremen typically slept through the daylight hours.

"Done?" Bado asked her. She nodded. "Good. Go get your things. They'll be here soon." She nodded again, slipping down into the cavern to collect the few things she'd be bringing with her. She buckled the Sardokar's knife to her belt and secured it tightly. This was the only shred of proof she had of what she'd learned. She'd need it to convince Gurney and Hawat the threat was real. Then she lifted a satchel full of food she and Bado had prepared over the last two days and tied the fabric ends of it around her waist, depositing the weight of the small bundle of cargo at her lower back.

She drew in a deep breath, listening to it filter through the breathing bask strapped across her face. It was time to go... back to the whole rest of the galaxy she'd fled in favor of this abandoned corner of one barely habitable desert planet. But first, they'd have to go to the large sietch to the south. What would it be like, traveling with her Fremen lover right into the heart of his people's day-to-day lives? Would the other Fremen accept her the way he and Gaius had? She shivered, remembering what she had known before Bado's own actions wrote the exception to the rule: Fremen do not take in outsiders, only the water in their flesh.

Suddenly a rumbling sound from above called her attention. The little spy climbed up out of the cavern and stood by her lover, watching the arrival of the others with wide eyes behind her wind-shielding goggles. The lean, recognizable frame of Gaius with his mop of dark hair leapt down from the back of an immense sand worm, long handled hooks in his hands. Upon the beast's back, four more men with long hooks held open the armored plate sections of the worm just before their feet, exposing the soft inner flesh of the worm's body to the air.

This may have been one of the best kept secrets in the galaxy, but even if she'd heard stories of worm riders since her earliest days as a child, it could not have prepared the Caladanian woman for the reality of it. The thing was so massive... only the blue whales of her homeworld's vast, deep oceans could boast similar size. She supposed with a little twist of amusement that this 'Shai Hulud' was not so different from the whales. It, too, swam a sea, though this was one of scorching sand rather than salt water.

"It looks good on you." Gaius said as he strode up to the pair of them, nodding to her Fremen stillsuit and clothing. "I knew it would."

"Thank you again for bringing it, before." Frey said, dipping her head in a slight bow of respect. Gaius 'hm'ed an appreciative note then looked at Bado. Despite the breathing mask, hood, and goggles, Frey somehow knew the smaller man was grinning at his cousin. Gaius clapped Bado on his arm.

"You did good, eh? Kept her in one piece. Even protected her from this one, huh?" He prodded the bundled corpse with a toe, looking it over thoughtfully. Bado followed his gaze but said nothing. "Big fella wasn't he?" Gaius mused. "Well... You'll have his weight in water to your name, now. Finally come into your own, eh?" Bado shook his head. Gaius tilted his in confusion.

"Frey killed him. Saved me." He said laconically, offering no further explanation. It was technically true, she supposed. But, that brief and general description did not seem to her to do the scene justice. It wasn't as if she'd been fighting the Sardokar one-on-one or facing off with him directly, after all. Still though, in case Bado had some plan or knew something she didn't about how she might be accepted into the Fremen sietch community based on this notion, she didn't correct or elaborate on his statement.

Gaius looked back at her, head tilting down an back up as he looked over her whole person as if seeing her for the first time.

"Is that right?" He asked, tone mostly to himself. "Well," He added, turning back to Bado, "It's about time someone who can keep up with your antics aside from me is around to look after you, oaf." He clapped Bado's arm again and then gestured down at the body. "Well, help me get him aback our maker then you can pull her up yourself.

"Kinda doubt she'd trust anyone else to, anyway." Bado replied offhandedly. He beckoned her to follow before lifting the head and shoulders end of the bundled corpse while Gaius hefted the feet. They maneuvered it to the side of the worm and negotiated the burden into the combined grasp of several men's hooks. They pulled and turned and shifted the body until they had safely gotten it up on top of the beast amid where they stood on the great 'maker's' back.

She watched curiously as Gaius nodded to Bado, who held out his left hand, showing Gaius that he was carrying his own set of hooks, appropriate in length to match his own grand proportions. Then the lithe smaller man turned about and all but ran up the side of the beast, gaining purchase for his arms using the hooks under the plated segments of outer armor-like skin on the worm. In a beat and a breath he was back up atop the worm with his fellows and gesturing for Bado to hurry up and join them. Frey swallowed, looking up at them.

"Think you can climb onto my back and hold on tight while I get us up to the top of the maker?" He asked. She nodded more confidently than she felt inside, but moved over to him without hesitation. They had discussed and planned for this already, of course. He merely repeated himself to remind her of that and his previous assurances that she would be perfectly safe with his support and her own strength and skill to boot.

The little Atreides spy climbed onto the big Fremen's back as he stooped to facilitate her ascent. She wound her legs tightly around his middle and her arms about his collar.

"Ready..." She said quietly, close to his ear a moment or two later, all of her tense as she anticipated him springing into action. He did not disappoint her expectations in this, drawing a deep, swelling breath and then darting forward to the worm's side. He transfered his momentum into a vertical boost almost in the manner of a high jumper, but then locked the points of his hooks beneath the ring segments of the worm's carapace and set his big feet at it's side, climbing up the convex side of the creature with little struggle, despite the added weight and strain of a passenger on his back.

In just a few heartbeats they were at the top of the beast, Frey looking from this high vantage down at the scattered green silhouettes of the oasis plants they'd cared for together over the past months since she'd crash landed into his life. She gave a fretful sigh and squeezed her lover with her arms and legs about him. Having no hand to spare at the moment, he inclined his head until it rested against hers, a perfectly clear show of understanding and reassurance.

They turned toward the worm's front end and the men furthest to it's sides, holding open extra panels of carapace, released their hooks. Bado had explained to her the day before, while he briefed her on the procedure of travelling from the oasis to the sietch, that they controlled the worm's behavior and course by prying at the panels of armor with their hooks. The worm would strive to keep any exposed inner skin away from the sand, which was an unpleasant irritant to it if it got under the armor plates of the great beast. Depending on how and where they held open it's plates and segments, the team could halt, spur, turn, or release the beast to it's own devices. This last was the most dangerous, but often such risk became unnecessary if the worm was properly exhausted.

The side-stationed men released their holds and the carapace shell pieces snapped down with a dry rasp to overlap their neighboring segments. The enormous beast gave a rumbling groan and lurched forward, each of it's passengers holding on and helping to direct the beast with their own hooks as necessary.

The mundanity of the situation as far as the Fremen were concerned only made the idea of it that much more ludicrous to Frey as they picked up speed, leaving the oasis rapidly diminishing in size in the distance behind them as they made for the sietch twenty three thumpers to the southeast. She had no real idea of how that measure of distance converted to kilometers, but hell, it couldn't be that far since Bado seemed to think they'd get there in only a couple hours.

She passed those hours looking about her at the vast empty landscape of dunes and sand and dust, wondering at how an entire culture could revel in their existence in such a desolate place, take pride in it, and defend it from even the knowledge of outsiders. Gradually her arms and legs began to ache, but Bado had instructed her before they'd ever mounted the maker not to try to stand on it without hooks. His feet were not stationary during the journey, stepping and shifting sideways as the armored ring segments of the worm shifted beneath them.

Frey leaned over sideways to observe the sand being sucked under the worm's sides as it passed, churning beneath it rapidly, almost like water. It was easy enough to see why he'd insisted she remain clung to his back for the duration. One false move and she'd fall and be buried alive in an instant.

She busied herself watching the worms odd locomotion when the interest of the scenery began to pale for her. The rings along its length were complete around its girth and evenly spaced, but by shifting its plates it created a surprisingly fast method of moving across the desert sand. For the most part it kept the segments exposed by the Frenems' hooks prying the plates back facing upward and free of debris and the desert substrate. This was also implicitly the reason the worm did not submerge itself in the sand and drown them all in earth.

They did not speak for most of the trip. The desert wind and the hissing, shifting sound of their passage tore away their words and made them have to shout to be heard by one another. But, a little after the two Arakian moons reached their third quarter height, Bado turned his head back and called to her where she still clung to his back.

"Not long now!" He hollered. She nodded, not altogether sure she could trumpet her voice over the wind without it being right in his ear either.

Sure enough, they passed over a ridge of sand and a different looking stretch of horizon came into view. The sietch was not obvious at a distance and probably would be similarly disguised from the air, Frey thought with interest. The structures were build of sandstone the same color as everything around it. Rocky outcroppings surrounded and punctured the layout of the community, which looked oddly small to her eyes, until Frey remembered Bado's own home and realized much of the habitable spaces might have been underground.

When they finally slid to a stop, the maker lurched into a lethargic stillness, a rumbling sound like a groan resonating from somewhere inside the great beast. They hopped down, the sand cushioning their fall, and Frey clambered off her lover's shoulders on shaky, tired limbs. She looked back over her shoulder at the worm, which began to slowly lurch underground now that its plates had been released to snap back down over its vulnerable flesh.

"We'd best move quickly." Gaius growled to the two of them, dragging the bundled corpse up to where Bado stood. "Until we've exchanged this and she has something to her name, it will be very hard to go about without others interfering or obstructing you two." Bado nodded, picking up the corpse and shouldering the weight. He turned his head to Frey.

"Put your hood up, love." He said, "And keep your goggles on for now. If we can hide your hair and eye color for a while yet, we will have an easier time of it." She stared up at him a moment, then complied. Gaius' companions actually broke apart from the group and went their separate ways, apparently not actually at his command or tied to him beyond whatever duty had compelled them to help wrangle the maker.

The three remaining companions walked right into the sietch, Gaius at the lead with Frey following and Bado at the back where he could keep an eye on her. He didn't want to lose her or have anyone stop or question her, he explained. To Frey it felt absurdly like having bodyguards or an entourage of some kind. Gaius led them past the exterior structures and down into a cavern with a stairway that Frey presumed had to be swept a dozen times a day at least to keep the sand off of it.

When they got to the bottom of the stairway and walked several yards down a forking tunnel, two Fremen in cream colored robes, dusty at the hems of course, approached and spoke quietly with Bado and Giaus. The big oasis sentinel deposited the corpse into the hands of several other Fremen who appeared as soon as summoned by a call from one of the first two down the corridor behind him. Frey watched them carry away the corpse of the sardokar curiously, glancing at Bado and Gaius while trying to seem as though this whole exchange were perfectly normal to her. Her companions turned back to her and nodded. Bado leaned close and murmured an explanation in her ear, too quietly for the stewards of this strange cavern to hear.

"It will take time to render the body down. Time we don't have, so we're going to have them estimate the water by his weight and then round down for the error margin. You'll get that amount now, and they'll keep the rest, if any. It'll save us having to wait or come back in a few hours. Plus," He added somewhat awkwardly," We... can't really afford to stay anywhere until we get the rings from this water."

Frey eyed the single ring braided in his collar and he glanced away, abashed. A moment later one of the Fremen who had carried away the corpse returned with a folded piece of cloth in his hand. Inside the folds something clinked. He reached them and stepped forward to Gaius, unfolding the fabric to display a collection of gold bands within.

Frey's eyes widened as she saw them. Dozens of rings in various sizes glinted in the light of glow globes hanging on the walls. Gaius had many more than Bado attached to his clothing, sure, but even he didn't have this kind of wealth on his person. Could they really extract so much water from the dead man? So much wealth?

Gaius bowed his head in thanks and accepted the bundle, stuffing it into a knapsack which he handed over to Bado. They exited the cavern without another word.

Once outside, Gaius beckoned them down an adjacent street until they disappeared down the throat of yet another rocky tunnel. Not too far in a Fremen woman stopped them and asked for payment. Frey found it rather interesting that so many Fremen spoke common, but then again she remembered distantly something about the Fremen not actually being native to this planet but the descendents of the first colonists of the strange, savage spice planet. So, she supposed, it should not be all that surprising. Gaius fished out one of the smallest rings, just about the size of Bado's singular one, and gave it to the woman, who thanked him graciously and excitedly ushered them into the warren of rock tunnels until she held open a curtain for them to enter a small sequence of two or three rooms with glow globes and comparatively lavish furnishings.

They stepped inside and the men set down their things. The woman asked if she could bring them anything but Gaius waved her off politely. She left them, letting the curtain fall closed, and a moment later Gaius closed a heavier drape over it.

"Is this... an inn?" Frey asked after a time. The pair of Fremen men simply tilted their heads at her uncomprehendingly. "Nevermind..." She mumbled, blushing. "But, how long can we stay here?"

"Not permanently." Gaius said.

"But, as long as we want to." Bado added, smirking at her look of confusion.

"We purchased a promise of hospitality and privacy for as long as we choose to stay." Gaius elaborated, shooting a peevish glance at his cousin for making the whole thing sound so cryptic. "But it is understood that this is temporary lodging... for nomads, which you two are of course."

"But others... Fremen with families I suppose... They have permanent homes, yes?" She inquired.

"Yes." Gaius replied, "Not very many this far north though. Most families are in the far South."

"Southern hemisphere." Bado added. Frey recalled they were somewhere near the planet's middle latitude, the Arakian equator.

"Well, I'm afraid I can't stay any longer, cousin." Gaius said, suddenly turning to Bado. "With Liet gone, there's a lot of chaos to manage here." He sighed. Bado turned sharply to the smaller man.

"Gone?" He echoed. Frey had noticed it to. The way Gaius had said the word implied the more permanent variety of absence. Gaius nodded, eyes troubled.

"Yeah... There was some kind of commotion with some offworlders. They took him and sent us messages saying they'd killed him. Said they were Harkonen, like Beast Rabban."

"Rabban..." Frey breathed, eyes wide with surprised recognition. "You know of him? The former duke?" Gaius nodded.

"What will happen to the plan now that Liet is gone?" Bado asked in strained tones, plainly worried. Gaius shrugged, his own eyes concerned.

"I do not know. There is a ceremony later tonight though, the naming of a new reverent mother, if the rumors can be believed. Presumably we will know more then." Frey looked anxiously at Bado, who returned a similarly uncertain gaze. "In any case," Gaius added, "I cannot delay any longer."

"Thank you, Gaius, for coming for us." Bado said solemnly.

"Thank you." Frey echoed, bowing very slightly to him. Gaius smiled and waved them off.

"Make sure you get her fixed up with all her rings, cousin." He said, nodding to Bado. "She'll need to look the part if you really want to hire transport without causing a scene or starting a fight. "But, on the other hand," He added, eyeing Bado's only ring at his collar. "It might not be believable, since you can hardly afford to court her, now." Bado made a derisive little note of amused resentment, but did not reply to the jibe, whatever it had actually been.

"What?" Frey asked. The two men ignored her question for the time being, staring directly into one another's eyes as if trying to read the other's thoughts. After a time, Bado broke away, glancing down and swallowing. Gaius chuckled.

"Just take care of each other." He said, smiling, and turned to go without any more ceremony.

  
The pair of lovers stood awkwardly together after he had gone, saying nothing for a few moments of reticence. Here they were, in the strange space of time between choosing one another, and transporting Frey away, dooming them to separation now that they'd only just sworn love to one another a few days prior. Guilt gnawed at Frey, she glanced up at Bado's eyes and away again, her expression pained.

"I'm sorry..." She whispered. "I don't want to go..." He sighed and stepped close, resting his big hands on her shoulders and pressing his closed lips to the top of her head, over her hood.

"I know..." Came his murmured reply in that deep voice so dear to her now. "Come... We need to show you for the wealthy woman you are now." He tugged her gently over to a low table and coaxed her into a sitting position before it. He took out the folded cloth bundle of water rings and opened it on the table. The many gold bands shone and glinted in the warm light of the room. Frey stared at them for a time, mesmerized but uncertain.

Bado settled down behind her on his knees and delicately pulled off her hood, then untied the string binding her hair, letting the long pale green strands out so they spilled over her shoulders and halfway down her back. She waited with curiosity half-numbed by worry and apprehension. He carefully removed her goggles and fetched a comb from somewhere in the room, presumably part of the 'hospitality' they'd bought. He returned to his seat behind her on the floor and combed through her hair patiently. It felt good... familiar and comforting somehow.

Frey looked about the rooms as he worked, noticing for the first time that one of the adjacent rooms, half hidden by a partially draped curtain in the doorway, contained a large bed upon the floor, complete with dimmer glow globes, pillows, and blankets. They were all foreign iterations of these objects made from relatively unfamiliar materials, but still recognizable for their purposes. She swallowed, thinking with a blush what she would like to do with her desert man on the bed they had apparently rented here for as long as they wished to stay. But, that could hardly help soothe them while they knew very well she'd have to leave as soon as possible. Even if he did escort her all the way back to civilization as she new it, she'd still have to leave him behind once she got there. Separation was inevitable at this point.

He picked up one of the rings as he divided her hair and began to braid, fingers moving deftly, if slowly, to arrange the long strands of hair into an order familiar to him through his cultural upbringing.

"When should we go hire the thopter?" She asked quietly. He raised the ring to her hair and weaved it into the braid.

"We should move quickly..." He said quietly. She nodded her agreement.

"What did Gaius mean about you not being able to 'afford' to court me?" She asked after a short silence. Bado slowed mid-reach for another ring to braid into her hair.

"Ah..." He said somewhat stiffly. "Well, among my people a man shows a woman he likes that he will make a good mate by offering her water rings. He trusts her to carry their family's wealth and she trusts him to win it from enemies in combat. He needs to give more thans she has on her own, and I, well... I don't have enough, obviously." He blushed as she looked over her shoulder at him, eyes glancing down toward the single little ring on his person. She turned about again and he resumed her elaborate hair dressing with gold water rings.

"Among my people..." She said quietly after a few breaths of silence had passed. "Only one ring is needed to wed one's chosen partner. It is given as a symbolic gift and the receiver wears it on his or her finger as a sign of devotion once and after they are married." He said nothing in reply to this, only continuing to braid rings into her hair until all of the pile had disappeared onto her person. Somehow he'd managed to place them in such a way that several denominations were available without having to unbraid much hair. And, none of the metal rings clinked or clicked together as she moved about normally.

She turned around and looked up at him, her desert man. He was looking at her, a distant expression in his blue within blue eyes.

"You look... magnificent, Frey..." He murmured after a few moments, eyes catching hers and smoldering. "Like a princess or something..." She blushed.

"Because of this wealth?" She asked, fingering one of her braids full of water rings. He shook his head.

"Because... you look Fremen... like you belong here. I know your colors belie that," He added hastily when she opened her mouth to protest. "That's not quite what I mean... I mean... I see you like this and I can imagine... what it might have been like... the two of us together, you know?" She looked away, throat tight, exhausted from the day's journey and the pain of thoughts like that, which she had been tormenting herself with ever since she'd decided she had to go back to the world she'd abandoned.

"When should we go?" She asked in a strained, hushed voice, refusing him eye contact. It hurt too much, dwelling on what might have been. She resented him for bringing it up, even though it was already all she could think of for the moment.

"I think we should go to the ceremony first." He said slowly and seriously. She looked back at his eyes, her own flashing with uncertainty. Was he trying to protract what little time he had left with her?

"Why?"

"Because... Liet was not just our leader. He was also an offworlder." Frey blinked at that. She'd suspected as much, but she wasn't sure why this mattered now. "He was sent to this planet to study it and he eventually became one of us. He was involved with... all this emperor and duke politics you have spoken of." She nodded slowly.

"And?"

"And... I think if we go to the ceremony we may learn something important about the state of things. You were out of touch for a long while, Frey. It would be very risky to dive back into all this without knowing anything of how the winds may have changed, you know?" She nodded slowly.

"That is a reasonable argument..." She said slowly, thoughtfully, then smiled sympathetically. "It's not the whole story though, is it?" He blushed.

"Well..." He said sheepishly, "If you feel inclined... It would be a great treasure to me to share in the water of life ceremony with you, beloved. Especially if I must be parted from you so soon..."

Everything of him pleaded for her to grant this wish. Even after everything he'd done for her he did not demand her compliance in this last request before they said goodbye to one another, quite possibly forever. His selfless deferral to her whim shamed Frey with his earnestness. She looked down, swallowed as her eyes burned, then back up at his otherworldly eyes.

"All right..." She said, very quietly. "As you wish."


	12. Probable Futures

 "The ceremony isn't for a few hours." Bado said gently, setting his hands on her shoulders and stroking her over her stillsuit with his thumbs. There was so much affection in his voice. Frey had waited all her life for this but now it almost burned her as she heard the kindness and care there, knowing she would be leaving him behind when she left the desert behind soon. He peeled off his mask and smiled at her. That hurt too, seeing that earnest smile. She stared up at him with uncertain eyes, not flinching or resisting as he carefully removed her breathing mask. His blue within blue eyes gazed down at her mouth for a moment, then he bent his neck, a hand gently touching at her jawline, tilting her face upward. She let him.

 

He kissed her slowly, a sense of seeking, searching about it. She didn't press him in return, but she received it, somehow reading in his movements the denial and hope and fear... or were those all just things she was imagining; projecting on him because she was afraid to let herself feel them?

 

Gradually, carefully he led her to the bedchamber in this suite of little cavern rooms, one hand at her cheek, the other about her waist. She made no motion to resist it. Part of her wanted to make the best of the last few hours she had to be with him alone like this. It had been a strange shock to be with him among other people where she could not show her affection and their intimate bond. Out in the oasis there was no one to wonder at a big Fremen man gazing down at a diminutive offworlder, caressing her arm in lieu of words they both already knew without saying them. The minute they left this rented sanctuary that privacy would be gone again.

 

But... the rest of her fearfully wondered if her resolve could withstand lying with him now. She wanted it so badly... She wanted to stay with him so badly. The dread of two days ago at the revelation of the sardokar's identity had compelled her to remember her oaths of loyalty, but now it was fading away in this moment. He hummed softly in satisfaction as he kissed her again, his movements growing more sure the longer she complied without resistance.

 

Each press of his mouth flooded her with a mixture of pleasure and shame. It felt so good... warm and soft and sweet. Each kiss stole away her conviction. Each touch seemed to siphon off her worry over the lives of the Atreides she had sworn to serve. And _that_ burned her inside.

 

'Is your core so weak?' She thought viciously to herself. 'This is why Hawat never let you love anyone. Look how you melt for him! The enemy would never have had to kill you to wound your house. All they would have had to do was toss a big unsuspecting man in your path and watch you unravel.' Disgust rose in her stomach. How had the lives of Duke Leito, Paul, Lady Jessica and the rest come to mean so little to her when compared to the euphoria of this man's kisses? She heard herself whimper very softly into his mouth. It seemed to spur him further, his motions more certain, more insistent now.

 

'No...' She thought vainly, even as she let him guide her down onto the bedroll, settling on top of and astride her, the warm weight pinning her down. 'You can't do this...' Some part of her pleaded, 'They might be dying while you lie here with your desert man. Would your moans of pleasure justify their screams of pain, huh, spy?' She winced as the thought flashed through her mind. Lying on her back beneath the man she wanted to let in, wanted to make love to, she suffered the ache of her own perceived betrayal of her house. Her lover did not miss the expression that flashed across her features.

 

Bado looked fondly into her eyes, something resigned but calm there, disappointment tempered by the knowledge that he certainly couldn't have what he wanted without her willing participation. Anything else would be a horrible perversion of their mutual feelings.

 

"You are tired." He murmured gently. She nodded, eyes burning, brow bent worriedly. He kissed her forehead and pulled back, stroking her cheek with gentle fingertips. "Then you must rest." He sighed, smiling softly at her. "I'll see what I can find out. You'll be safe here, so get some sleep. I'll wake you when it's time to go to the ceremony."

 

She nodded, swallowing. He gave her one last kiss and tugged a blanket over her. She sagged into the weight of her fatigue, which felt much more real in this moment than it had just seconds ago. Bado dimmed the glow globes for her and moved away, letting her alone in peace as he went about. The ride on the worm had taken more out of her than she'd realized, only now feeling the bone-deep exhaustion of her muscles as she lay down. Sleep pulled her under almost immediately, blessedly sparing her with it's darkness the fear and shame and longing that were wrestling in her now. She just slept.

 

Frey had no idea how much time had passed. It seemed only an instant, a blink, before Bado was gently shaking her shoulder until she stirred.

 

"Frey..." He called quietly. "It's time to wake, beloved." She drew in a long breath through her nose and stretched her limbs where she lay, blinking her eyes open and looking at that familiar face over hers.

 

Sleep had soothed her somewhat from her troubled thoughts so she smiled up at him. A flicker of the same flashed across his face, but then his expression turned serious.

 

"I went out and asked around about what's been going on with the Harkonen and what happened to Liet." He said quietly, brows beginning to knit together. She sat up.

 

"Did you find out anything?" She asked urgently. He nodded.

 

"Liet was protecting some offworlders and was killed for his trouble. I do not know who they were but I am told one has taken a Fremen name and become the Lisan al Gaib." She blinked in confusion.

 

"What is that?"

 

"It means: 'The Voice from the Outer World'." He explained. "I always thought Liet was this prophet but apparently not... especially since he is dead."

 

"And what of the Harkonen?" Frey asked urgently. It wasn't that she didn't find all this business about prophets and so on interesting, but the plight of her house rasped at the back of her mind like sandpaper every moment.

 

"Rabban reigns as Duke of Arakis, or so I am told." Bado said, tension rising in him. "He has declared his intentions to eradicate my people." Frey started. A genocide? Everything in their briefing had suggested the Fremen were of no real concern politically, for the Atreides or the Harkonen. Why, then, would Rabban expend resources ferreting out the planet's natives and killing them?

 

"What of Duke Leito?" She asked, mind never straying far from her purpose. Bado shook his head.

 

"I do not know this name. I heard nothing of the Atreides. But, if Rabban holds the dukedom here..." He trailed off. There was no need for him to finish. She understood before he'd said anything.

 

'All the more reason I have to go...' she thought, 'I have to find out and help if ever I can.'

 

As if reading her thoughts through her eyes, Bado's face expression grew strained and desperate. He seized her shoulders.

 

"You can't go, Frey." He said firmly. She blinked at him in shock, incredulous. "You'll only be killed. The Harkonen rule outside the desert. They _will_ kill you as soon as you set foot in their territory. You think they'd have spared a soul from the tribe they usurped? Mercy is not in their nature."

 

"I know that!" She hissed, "But how can I just stand by without knowing for sure? Without finding out? What if they're still alive, Bado?" He squeezed her tightly, his grip bordering on painful as he looked desperately into her eyes.

 

" _You_ are alive!" He hissed, voice strained. "And even as you say these things to me, you must know that _I_ cannot stand by while you go to certain death!" She stared into those blue, blue eyes and barely squeaked out a reply, her resolve faltering as she noticed him trembling.

 

"I _have_ to go..."

 

Bado growled in frustration and kissed her hard. She met that kiss, full of her own tension and anger. He leaned over her, taking advantage of the leverage he had in this position until she was lying on her back again. She bared her teeth even as she gripped his sides.

 

"You don't understand!" She breathed, a total confusion of anger and desire raging in her as she kissed him fiercely again. "Would you have me forsake honor? Would you even want me so?" He panted as he pressed down on her, snarling a reply as he strained against his own fear and wanting.

 

"I would have you see reason, Frey! You will throw your life away for honor, but not keep it for my sake? You suffer, not knowing whether your masters are alive or dead. How much do you think I will suffer, not knowing whether my _love_ is alive or dead?!" He kissed her again and again, desperation in every touch. Begging, pleading with his mouth on hers... and winning.

 

Frey gave a long, strained, voiceless wail in the form of a hissing exhalation into his mouth, bit his lip in a last token gesture of frustrated admonishment, and then smothered her fire for the moment, growing relaxed under him. He reflected her sudden calm as he waited to hear what she would say.

 

"Let's just... go to the ceremony. We can revisit the matter after. Perhaps we will know more, then." She did not sound hopeful, because of course she was not. She was losing the fight, so much of herself aligned and in agreement with his argument, but fearing she was merely a coward trying to save her own skin. She was torn right down the center and there was no way out that would not slay her conscience. But, blessedly, he relented for the moment, nodding, and got up off of her. 'Good.' She thought. 'Maybe while we are at the ceremony I can figure some way to convince him...' He put out a big hand and pulled her to her feet and the pair regarded each other as if from opposite sides of prison door, longing, desperate, lost.

 

"Here..." Bado said after a few breaths, reaching for something on the table and bringing out a small canteen of water. "This is part of the 'hospitality' we purchased. Drink... You need to keep your strength up." She nodded slightly, accepting the water and drinking dutifully. It soothed them both to have her agree and abide his request. At least in some small thing they could be of one mind.

 

She finished the water at his insistence and they fitted their masks back on before leaving. He led her through the streets of the Sietch to a larger cavern entrance, not particularly disguised or hidden from the outside. Colorful banners of red and blue stirred in the desert wind outside the entrance and Fremen all around them chattered excitedly about the impending event. As they drew close it the space around them became crowded. Bado's large hand found hers and he squeezed tightly, guiding and clinging to her as if fearful of losing her in the confusion. Part of her scoffed at that. She was not a child after all. But, if she were honest with herself, the thought of becoming separated from him and lost among all these unfamiliar faces so deep into Fremen territory was distinctly unnerving. So, she held tightly to his hand, squeezing back and sticking close to his side.

 

They made their way down into the cavern through the shifting mass of humanity, the musky scent of bodies in stillsuits almost suffocating as daylight disappeared behind them with the mouth of the cavern. Suddenly Frey felt Bado tense as another Fremen, not as tall as him but heavily muscled melted out of the crowd and stood with challenge in his posture just before them.

 

"Well, look what crawled back here from the oases." The man jeered, folding his arms in front of him and tilting his head at Bado. By the way Bado's expression as well as his grip on Frey tightened, she gathered this was no friend. She wriggled around beside him in the crush of bodies and looked up at the stranger, who blinked in surprised. "What's this, huh?" He pointed to her, eyes on Bado. "Couldn't find a Fremen woman who'd love a coward so you kidnapped yourself an offworlder, huh?" The man spat at Bado's feet. "I already knew you were a coward but I assumed your eyes were still blue. Are you even Fremen? What kind of man would have some offworld whore for his mate?"

 

"I would've thought," Bado began slowly, his voice just shy of a growl, "That if I'm a coward you don't consider a true Fremen, then who I choose can hardly make a difference to you, Brachy."

 

'Brachy' sneered.

 

"You might be the most worthless Fremen on Arakis but you are still one of us, at least in name. You bring shame to all Fremen for binding yourself to... _this_." He gestured at Frey, who glared up at the man. "But here's an idea: instead of straying even _further_ from the way, be a man and draw your knife." He drew his fingers up and traced them over the handle of his own white knife as he glanced at Bado's tucked beneath his belt.

 

Bado scowled at the man, shifting his feet so he stood more protectively in front of Frey, now. He did not speak, and did not reach for his knife, the hand that would have gripped it instead held firmly to Frey's hand as her desert man stared this other Fremen down.

 

"Ah, right..." Brachy said slowly, "You are a coward who does not fight."

 

"Never said I wouldn't fight..." Bado said slowly, sternly. Brachy raised an eyebrow, as if expecting him to draw his knife then and there, "But only for what I believe in. I won't challenge you or Stilgar or anyone else for power, but if you attack me or my woman I _will_ kill you, Brachy." His blue eyes flashed like chips of ice at the other, who's confidence flickered before he marshalled his bravado once more.

 

"Bah! No real Fremen would kill for an offworlder!" Brachy sneered, "It's a joke! Just like this so-called Lisan-al-Gaib! This 'Muad'dib' who--"

 

"Who is _here_." A strong, young voice declared suddenly. Brachy spun about in surprise, but his surprise was nothing to Frey's.

 

"Paul!" Frey gasped.

 

Duke Leito's son turned to her and a glimmer of interest crossed his eyes. She blinked, dumbfounded. It was is as if he  knew he'd run into her here. No surprise at all colored his too-calm expression. Her mouth worked but no words came out. The very last thing she expected to find in the heart of Fremen civilization stood before her int he form of one of the Atreides lords she had sword service too.

 

"Frey." The duke's son said evenly. "How interesting to find a servant of my house here of all places." She gave him a hasty, shaky salute, still speechless.

 

"Brachy!" A big, booming voice barked as yet another tall Fremen man stepped into the exchange. "When are you going to learn to work the rest of you harder than your mouth, eh?" The newcomer was just as tall as Bado but broader, with thick, dark eyebrows and a bushy black beard that eclipsed at least half his face.

 

"S-stilgar!" Brachy stuttered in reply.

 

"You will say no more talk like that of Paul Muad'dib!" Stilgar growled. "If you ever want to be one of my men! I have seen his weirding way. He and his mother are of us, now!" Brachy all but cowered before the big man named 'Stilgar', but Frey couldn't spare interest in the Fremen who had insulted her and her lover just moments ago.

 

"Lady Jessica is here too?" She demanded urgently to Paul. He nodded. "Then Du--"

 

"I am Duke now, the rightful Duke anyway." Paul interrupted smoothly as if he'd known already what she would say. "My father is dead. Assassinated." Paul explained without emotion. Frey blinked. Duke Leito? Dead? It wasn't anything she hadn't expected, but to hear it so bluntly from his own son... The revelation shook her.

 

"Dead..." She echoed, bewildered, then snapped herself out of her reverie. "And what of Master Hawat? And Gurney?" Paul shook his head without sadness, only a slightly uncertain cast to his eyes.

 

"I cannot say for certain what has become of them or whether we will see them again just yet." There was something about the way he said that... as if he were expecting news any day that would predict this for him. "But," He added after a moment. "There are probable futures in which we may see them again."

 

Suddenly the conversation between Stilgar and Bado drew Frey's attention.

 

"It is not that the oases are any less important, my friend, but I could use your strength here, with me!" Stilgar was saying. Brachy was standing off to the side, head bowed in embarrassment. Clearly he had not wanted to lose face or be reprimanded by Stilgar. Bado sighed and shook his head.

 

"I'm no real use to you as a fighter anymore, sir. Best I stay with what I can put my heart into, even if I am considered a coward for it." Bado said, calm but firm. Stilgar tilted his head a little, eyeing Frey with his own Fremen-blue eyes and then glancing back up at Bado, his eyebrows twitching upward for half a heartbeat.

 

"I see." He said clearing his throat. "Well then. Stay with where you heart is and help build our new world, I suppose." A smirk flitted around the big man's mouth as he spoke, and he said no more to Bado, turning to Frey.

 

"It seems that turning Fremen is quiet popular among offworlders right now." He said jovially.

 

"She is one of mine." Paul said to stilgar, voice still firm and confident, even in the face of this giant Fremen wall of a man. Stilgar glanced at him, interested. Bado's hand gripped Frey's more tightly. He watched Paul closely.

 

"Is that so?" Stilgar said thoughtfully, running an enormous hand over his beard. He tilted his head at her again. "Where did you get all that water, eh, little one?" He asked.

 

"Killed a sardokar." She said, staring up at the man with nervous tension tightening her posture. Stilgar threw his head back and laughed.

 

"HAHAHA! Well, then! If I cannot have you to fight for me, then what of your woman?" He said, clapping Bado on the arm. Bado shifted somewhat uncomfortably. Paul interrupted, paving over Stilgar's humor with his own gravity.

 

"The Harkonen have taken over Arakis' government. Do you still serve Atreides?" Frey nodded, eyes sharp and bright. Paul nodded too. "Then stay among the Fremen with me and my mother. I _will_ take back what they stole from my father... from _me_."

 

"Paul," Frey blurted urgently. "I killed a sardokar in Harkonen colors! The padishah emperor--"

 

"I know." Paul interrupted, and with no more ceremony or explanation, he turned about and made his way through the crowd, parting the densely packed people with nothing more than force of will as he made his way to the platform at the rear of the cavern. Stilgar eyed Bado and Frey once more before following after Paul. Brachy had disappeared sometime during the conversation.

 

He knew? How? Frey's eyes followed her lord until he was eclipsed by the crowd, then a hush fell over the dense herd of humanity as her eyes widened at the sight of the persons up on the stage-like platform.

 

"Lady Jessica?" She murmured, baffled. The tall, stately Bene Gesserit was approaching an ancient and diminutive woman dressed as what could only be interpreted as the Fremen-ized version of a reverend mother. The old reverend mother gave Duke Leito's concubine words spoken into her ear as Jessica bent to hear them, then a young woman who did not look _entirely_ Fremen offered lady Jessica the spout of a large water skin, which she took into her mouth.

 

Someone stepped in front of Frey and her view was eclipsed. She looked to Bado and tugged his arm.

 

"Can you lift me up, please?" She asked eagerly. He obliged, winding his arms around her and hoisting her up, pinned against his body but with her head even higher than his own vantage now.

 

A still, nervous moment seemed to rush through the crowd. Jessica did not move, and Frey could not tell why this should be such a thing of tension, but she felt it in Bado and mirrored it instinctively.

 

An eternity seemed to pass as Frey watched the strange ceremony from afar, her mind tumbling with questions still. How had Lady Jessica and her son survived the coup? How had they come to be here, at the center of a ritual ceremony in Fremen territory, accepted and installed in Fremen society after so short a time even on this planet? What had become of Gurney and Hawat? Most of all, how did Paul seem to _know_ already to expect her here? What was that he'd said... about 'probable futures'?

 

Suddenly Frey blinked as a flurry of excited activity, cheering, and shouting began. Lady Jessica stood up straight and spoke with the elder reverend mother. The young not-quite-Fremen girl appeared to be passing the water skin down into the expectant hands of the crowd. Frey furrowed her brow, sure she had missed something. The crowd was growing agitated, excited, exultant. She looked to her lover, confused.

 

"She has transformed the water of life." He explained, blue-within-blue eyes glinting with excitement. That same excitement was palpable in the air around them. Somewhere at the other end of the crowd, nearer the platform, moans and cries of ecstasy began to fill the air, male and female alike. "The water will be shared with all present. We feel each other and become one." She stared at him for a heartbeat or two as the sounds, so obviously sexual now, grew closer and more numerous. She looked into his eyes, realization snapping into place now that the shock of seeing those of the house she'd presumed dead or captured in this Fremen sietch had receded somewhat.

 

"They're here..." She breathed. "Paul and Lady Jessica are _here_! He told me to stay with him among the Fremen!" She seized his face in her hands and kissed him hard. He started with surprise, but returned the kiss barely a heartbeat later. She broke away as the noise of the orgy that was forming around them escalated to a chorus of voices. "I don't have to leave!" She shouted, her voice bursting out of her as she looked with electric elation into her lover's blue, blue eyes, her face splitting into a wide grin.

 

He grinned back at her and squeezed her to him with a joyful laugh of relief. Then he set her down and knelt, drawing close to her so she could hear him more easily as the din grew louder and closer yet.

 

"Frey, you do not have to drink it but the water of life will be passed to us any moment. I want to be with you always, beloved. So I would treasure the chance to be of one rhythm with you, to feel each other this way." He looked hopefully into her eyes and sure enough the large water skin, mostly empty now, appeared out of the crowd and was passed to him by another. He held it out to her and Frey hesitated.

 

Nearby, Fremen were embracing, kissing, feeling each other with a certain, unbridled fever. Every person in the cave ahead of them was slammed together in passionate entanglement as if all of them were already lovers before this began. within an arm's reach one Fremen woman was divesting a man of his stillsuit while his own hands worked at hers. A little farther out, Frey could see nude bodies entwined and interlocked. Everyone was euphoric, unbound, ecstatic.

 

If she were going to stay here--great mother she could _stay_!--she would have to get used to culture shock, she supposed. And she already knew she wanted to be with him in every way possible, so Frey tilted the spout to her lips and drank a mouthful of the water of life before passing it to Bado.

 

The taste of it seared her tongue, like the spice times ten thousand. Her throat spasmed and tears sprang to her eyes. Bado drank and passed off the vessel. Then, noticing her expression he gripped her shoulders, calling to her distantly, his voice all but lost in the roar all around them. Her head spun. Everything became a blur of sound and light and confusion. Then, her mind burst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story follows and overlaps the evens in the first half or so of Frank Herbert's Dune. The Sietch Orgy and the water of life ceremony is taken directly from scenes in that book, though there is no sexually explicit detail in Dune. I know having a whole orgy is pretty out there for my work, so I figured I'd make a note about where that came from. ;)


	13. One Rhythm

It was as if her mind had been a bowl upon a table and the consciousness of all the people in that cavern had been poured into her until her bowl overflowed and everything cascaded out over the table and floor. She cried out, unsure if she was feeling her voice from within her throat or hearing it from four feet away or all the way across the cavern. The truth was all three, somehow.

"Frey! Speak to me." Bado's voice called urgently from several directions at once. She was looking at him and seeing herself in his grasp. She was feeling that grasp, but that is not all she was feeling. Heat and pressure and pleasure and sound pressed on her from every direction. She moaned and gasped and heard and spoke with many voices and many ears. Which one of us was Frey? She was slipping; losing herself in the crush of minds and perceptions and personalities.

There was someone here named Frey, though. That voice kept saying it. She felt the concern and determination directed at this 'Frey' person as if it were her own. It served as just enough of an anchor to separate herself from the confusion of thoughts and feelings that might belong to anyone or everyone here.

"Bado!" She gasped, clutching at him and grimacing. "I can't-I need..." She shook her head. "Get me out! Please!" A big man scooped her up. It was the same one who had been calling out that name... 'Frey'... 'Frey'. Or was she the man carrying that curled figure in his arms out of the cavern?

Time split apart and stretched out before them, branching out in a thousand million paths. She saw Paul as 'Muad'dib' riding the largest sandworm anyone had ever seen. She saw Reverend Mother Jessica and a strange young girl with eyes that spanned lifetimes with their uncanny awareness. She saw dozens of paths that lead to death and carnage in a trail of blood spanning the galaxy as a Fremen Jihad washed over the Harkonen first and then spread across worlds, avenging their messiah dead from any one of a number of possible untimely ends. And, she saw an oasis, grown large and lush with care and tending over months or perhaps years.

She saw herself, Frey... that was her... in Fremen clothing and stillsuit emerging to tend the plants as evening fell into night. A large Fremen man with a beard about his jawline appeared and stood beside her; helping, guiding... She saw herself older and he with streaks of gray in his hair and beard... and she saw a son who looked at her with features part her own and part her desert man's.

Each vision flitted away again, making room for the next in short succession until much of it was just a blur of overlapping past and future memories. But this one she tried to hold on to, if only for the truth it armed her with even as the image of her future son's face dissolved into chaos and vague impressions with all the other pieces. She did have a future here... with him: her desert man. She may have come from a world of rain, but she could make her home here, where her love could grow in peace and protection along with those desert plants out in the oasis he'd built with his own hands.

The scope and scale of the time stream narrowed until it was merely a confusing overlap of the walk back to their rented lodgings such that she was unsure at any moment whether they were still in the cavern, walking on the path or already arriving. Gradually, though, as the concentrated chaos of all those frenzied minds leaked back out of hers, Frey was able to parse the strange prescient awareness and understand where the present really was, and who she was.

"Bado..." She breathed.

"Are you well, now, beloved?" He hummed, and she felt it in her own mouth and throat, or rather, his...

"I... feel you." She breathed, awed. They really had arrived by now and she felt herself in his arms and his strong legs bearing both their weight from the inside, her mind overlapping his. He carried her inside and set her down on her feet in the main room of their borrowed getaway.

His hand came up and found her cheek as he leaned close, eyes closing in an entranced manner as he concentrated on her, their selves and awarenesses intertwining here, now, then, and in various futures.

"I told you it would be so." He murmured, caressing her in an almost delirious attitude she felt, herself.

"I saw..." She trailed off, gasping as his arms wrapped around her and he pulled her against him in an eager embrace she experienced from within each of them simultaneously. Their masks were each still removed from having drunk of the water of life minutes ago.

"What?" He breathed, even as he kissed her.

"I-saw-us..." She told him in between kisses, which she returned eagerly, feeling the warmth of his mouth as well as hers, feeling his adoration and his hope and his love right overtop her own. "Together..." She kissed him again, feverishly, their mutual passion burning brighter with each touch. "Here-on-Arakis..." She gasped into his mouth. "We belong..."

"Together." He finished her words for her, pressing her mouth with his. She felt his own thrill of joy and desire from within him as they smiled against one another's mouths, kissing again and again in feverish mutual hunger as each fumbled with the other's stillsuit straps just as had so many in the cavern minutes ago.

Great Mother, the way he _needed_ her... she knew that need first hand as he groaned into her mouth, shivering in anticipation as her hands began to successfully peel away his clothing. His own large hands were far more efficient at divesting her of hers and she began to walk backward, leading him along as she let him proceed in disrobing her. Soon enough her stillsuit was half off of her, the top portion dangling about her waist, her chest bare. She guided him back to the bedroll as his hands tried to find purchase on her unrobed skin but she grinned against his mouth and 'tsk'ed in gentle admonishment. Then, with a small, purring laugh, she bit his lip as she caught up each of his hands in turn to peel off his sleeves and similarly unbind him from the second skin of the stillsuit he'd worn all his life, no doubt.

He growled an impatient note and nudged her backward with further kisses until she was tugging at his clothing from the bedroll, lying on her back as he pulled her stillsuit off of her completely. She gasped slightly and he actually twitched as she did. He could feel her too... She maneuvered him into switching places with her and peeled off the legs of his own stillsuit until he was as bare before her as she was to him.

There was something there... a feeling of desperate loneliness dissolving like salt into water as their fingertips first grazed each other's bare skin. Their hands found more solid purchase on one another even before their eyes managed to, taking one another in by touch, rather than sight as they plucked and pressed and murmured at each other's lips again and again.

"Frey..."

"Bado..."

Each of their names was a spell they whispered and gasped to one another over and over. His hands traced her waist and squeezed her around her middle. Hers dragged a delicate touch down the center line of his chest and abdomen, trailing through the dark, thick hair that ran all the way up from his groin to chest where it spread out in a dense carpet of chest hair. Her emotions mingled and blended with his. She felt all of it and the strange link the water of life had forged between them deepened with every touch, every thought directed at one another.

"I told you I would be yours, beloved." He sighed, melting inside with joy. "You can hardly imagine how much I wanted to hear you say you would truly choose me, all those months ago." an echoing memory of bone-deep wishing resonated between them.

"You've been so patient." She purred, feeling his heart swell. "I was so lost... but now that I've found my way to you I'll never wander." her own chest felt as though it might burst with these feelings.

"Wander as you like, love. I'll never leave your side." He replied, reaching up to kiss her again. She met him halfway through the motion and slipped her tongue into his mouth. She let the distinction between them blur as she purposely lost herself in kissing him. Two heartbeats became one as she relaxed on top of him and let her slight weight settle atop his bulk. The wet warmth that was growing between her thighs was parallelled by an urgent, throbbing pressure between his. She felt the ache of his desire and shivered, moving her hips by instinct and grinding her sex against his with slow, deliberate motions.

She felt his pleasure as her own with every motion, almost reeling at the intensity of these twofold sensations. He moaned within the kiss, burning with the need that seared her, too. He pulled her gently upward by her hips and she without the need of words reached down and wrapped her fingertips carefully about his manhood. He gasped at the touch and it twitched in her hand. Frey twitched too, feeling firsthand the decadent agony of his desperate desire. She guided him into her flower, slick with heat and aching with her own hunger. Linked by the water of life the lovers trembled and gasped as their bodies embraced one another, becoming one as their minds had done already.

Frey melted atop him, her face tucked against his chest and he wrapped his arms about her, squeezing her tightly to him as they panted and shivered their way through this feeling of being joined together for the first time.

All at once, Frey remembered how she had feared such a joining with this man: that he might force it on her, back when she believed herself captive. She remembered the moment, lying next to him to keep her warm through the cold desert night that she realized she no longer wished to push him away. She remembered the moment she'd hesitated, a breath away from kissing him, and asked what he would do if she chose him.

She laughed and he smiled and laughed with her, breathless, sharing in her thoughts. His flowed freely in reply to her reverie.

He had been surprised... and curious when she'd appeared in his home. As he held his knife to her back, a flutter of anxiety unrelated to the threat of an intruder had jolted up his backbone. He'd sensed... something back then. His hand would not move the blade. He'd watched her and wanted her from almost the first moment he looked into her eyes. He'd been so frustrated; confused and betrayed by his heart... led astray by an offworlder who fell from the sky. Was he not already the worst of Fremen? Well... If he was already awful at being what he was born to be, then why was he fighting it so hard? The way she looked at the desert at night and the plants he'd painstakingly grown in the wasteland of sand and rock and dust.... The way she began to look at him... It had felt right the moment he'd surrendered to his heart and urged her to let him help her.

And, the moment she'd drawn so close he'd only have had to lean forward the breadth of a finger to meet her lips... He knew as he spoke the words that he'd truly live for her, with her. He'd have happily been hers then and there and every moment thereafter. And so he was. From the moment that promise had left his lips, Bado had considered himself hers whether she knew or wanted it or not. Yes perhaps he was a fool who would die alone in the desert, but he would not die regretting that he had not spoken true to his love, his green-eyed goddess from another world. And now, here she was, interlocked with him in the bond of lovers, sharing his heart, mind and body and sharing hers with him, too.

She bent her neck and kissed him, humming a warm note into his mouth as she retraced his memories and feelings with him. Slowly he began to move and she responded in kind, matching the gradual, rolling motion of his hips with her own as she tightened the embrace of her sex around his. He gasped softly, rhythm faltering. A half-smile appeared in his pleasure-softened expression. She smiled back, pressing him more insistently than before. He set his heels upon the bed roll and began to thrust more firmly upward. She gasped a shrill little note of surprise and mewled in pleasure upon the next beat of their shared rhythm.

His breath grew quicker by degrees as he gazed up at her; blue eyes drunk with pleasure and affection, half-lidded and shining in the dim golden light of the glow globes. She spread her thighs further, straining to press herself down on him as she curled her hips again and again with her hands braced against his chest, mouth falling open as she tilted her head back.

The fire was rising, stoked and fanned by his movements and the flow of love and thoughts and sensations between them. Her muscles burned as she fervently kept up her pace, feeling him urge her on in his thoughts as he watched her face, smiling at the way her brows knitted together and her eyes fluttered closed. The pleasure spurred her with its tantalizing promise of climax so close at hand. Frey's arms and legs trembled violently and she curled forward onto her lover.

Bado seized her hips and pulled her down upon him as he redoubled his efforts, thrusting hard into her as she continued her own rhythmic motions atop him. She heard herself begin to yelp and whimper, voice spilling out in plaintive anticipation. She felt his arousal spike as the sounds pricked his ears and the shared sensation threw her over the edge. She bucked involuntarily, crying out in frantic ecstasy as her orgasm overtook her. It hit him very nearly as hard and she heard him moan aloud as he felt it--no, as she felt him feel it.

The aftershock of her climax triggered his own, his head tilted back against the bedroll; eyes shut, mouth open. He thrust feverishly until she felt him come undone, spilling himself within her as he came. She watched him arch his back and felt his release from both sides, smiling with pride and adoration at her huge desert man, laid low by the fulfillment of his desire in her.

"Frey... beloved...." He panted, wrapping his great arms around her and squeezing her too him. She felt his completion and her lingering hunger; the taste of further pleasure teasing at the edge of her consciousness. He chuckled aloud as though she'd said something amusing and she blushed uncontrollably. Raising a hand to caress her cheek as he met her gaze, he spoke softly, his deep voice overflowing with adoration.

"Don't worry my shooting star... my goddess from another world... I would not leave you still hungry. Not for anything..." He gently tugged her down to him and she felt him tasting the same lingering arousal she felt as he kissed her, slowly... deliberately; her heart fluttering and her lips curling upward into a smile.

Her desert man's big hands smoothed over her body, grasped her around her waist and rolled her sideways, withdrawing himself from inside her and exchanging places with her so that her back was to the bedding and he settled himself atop her, nuzzling his mouth against her neck, kissing and licking her until she whimpered aloud. He worked her way down her collar to her breasts and there he kissed and licked her nipples until they stood out firm and slick form his attentions. She gasped as he gently rolled one between his teeth, knowing by their mental link just how much pressure to give without exceeding what was comfortable.

He kissed and licked and smoothed his hands over every bit of her over several minutes while she purred and hummed in tangible enjoyment; not that she would have needed to for him to know it was pleasurable for her. She knew from inside him that his body was once again firming in response to the sight and sound and feel of her in his hands and mouth. Before long he was iron hard and breathing heavy as she spread her legs and stared up at him with heavily lidded eyes and blood red lips parted around a breathy whisper of his name.

He slipped himself inside her once more, blinking slowly as he shared her enjoyment of being filled up with him pressed against her inner walls. By the time he began to move within her, Frey was almost delirious with the resurgence of pleasure. He curled against her, making sure to grind against the front of her until they both groaned at the decadent sensation. Soon he began to increase his tempo and she frantically seized his sides, pulling herself against him and willing him to move faster. He obliged her admirably, thrusting hard and fast until she was crying out in a shrill, broken song of ecstasy once more. But, he didn't stop there. He slowed as she uncurled her spine moments later, but never stopped. And, plainly he hadn't yet come within her a second time, either.

Twice more he brought her to climax as she clung to him and arched her back, her throat tightening around her voice and making her yelps and cries mere squeaks when she came for a fourth time. Frey flopped back onto the bedding, close to exhaustion and still riding the wonderful high of her orgasm when he hoisted her hips in his hands pulling her lower half up off the bedroll so that now as he thrust into her once more he struck a spot within her that jolted her back from the sweet, delirious afterglow of climax into a searing new kind of pleasure, so terribly intense she grew confused. This hard-edged, desperate sensation burned them both with its staggering sensation. Spurred almost to madness in his fevered effort to sate her every hunger, he drove himself into her hard against that spot over and over as she yelped and gasped and shrilled an uncontrolled, high-pitched chorus of frantic sounds until the dam finally burst within her.

Frey arched her back and every muscle in her body tensed and pulled to its limit as she came harder than all the other orgasms he'd given her this night put together. Her breath stopped in her throat and she felt herself constricting around him as she bucked her hips and he surged into her and struck that place again. This time she was the one to gush as her body let loose a squirt of a slippery wet liquid against him in time with the contractions of her orgasm. He felt it too, his mouth stretched open and eyes forced closed. He spasmed and bucked his hips almost involuntarily and then groaned loudly and feverishly as he came again within her.

She mewled and panted and squeezed her arms and legs around him and he returned her embrace and murmured in her ear in an unsteady but very satisfied voice:

"My goddess gives much water. I must have really pleased her with my offering, eh?"

"You speak as if you were not just as enthralled as I was in that moment. I felt you come undone, too, you know." She smiled as she hummed the words and caressed his cheek with her trembling hand.

"Yes. You speak true, love." He purred in reply, and then sat up before her, once again withdrawing himself and she gasped slightly as he slipped out of her, chill air upon both their wet skin. Bado reached for her stillsuit and coaxed her feet into the legs of the thing.

"Must we put them on again so soon?" She pleaded, knowing the answer already. He smiled at her softly.

"The more diligent we are with our water, the more often we can bend our rules for lovemaking, sweet one." She wriggled into the slick gray material as he helped her into it and sealed it up with the usual elaborate series of seals and straps.

"Well I suppose I can put up with it, then." She grinned back at her lover. She rose and helped him into his own suit as he added:

"Besides, Frey, we wouldn't want to waste the water we just gave to each other now would we?"

"I suppose not. But it is a sorry thing to have to shut away your body so soon. I don't suppose you could make a clear stillsuit for my benefit?" She teased with a wicked smirk. He chuckled tiredly despite his exhaustion, smile lines creasing around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes.

"I think I am eccentric enough without going so far as that, little one." He chided, snuggling close to her and pulling a rough spun blanket over both of them. He kissed her lips slowly and sweetly and she returned the kisses with a smile upon her lips. The link was fading now, but she could still feel the deep contentment and satisfaction in him as he refitted her mask and his and curled about her, squeezing her to him more insistently than he had before. Sleep took the once-spy almost immediately but her dreams overlapped with her desert man's as they embraced one another all through the night.

It was the deepest, most contented, and restful sleep of her life, knowing as completely as she did where and with whom she now belonged. And, it was a place and a man she'd chosen for herself, which made all the difference in the galaxy.


	14. The Unending Promise

When Frey awoke the familiar feeling of her huge Fremen lover's arm draped around her made her smile softly against the small, sand-filled pillow of the bedroll in their borrowed sanctuary. His breathing was slow and quiet but not so deep as to suggest he was still asleep. She twisted about and found him alert but relaxed, gazing at her with contented calm in those deep blue eyes.

"Good Morning..." She murmured affectionately, removing each of their breathing masks and bestowing a quick kiss on the end of his angular nose.

"Evening, Love..." He corrected with a smirk, tightening his embrace about her and moving in for a more slow and deliberate kiss to her lips.

"Right..." She breathed against his mouth. "Old habits..." He chuckled softly and kissed her again and again, taking his time, reveling in her.

"Bado..." She called softly after a few minutes of uninterrupted intimacy.

"Mm?" He hummed, nuzzling and kissing her neck just above the collar of her stillsuit.

"Did you... see... what I saw?" She asked cautiously. He ceased his kissing and gazed into her eyes, expression somewhere between contemplative and searching.

"I saw..." He began, bringing up his fingertips and brushing a bit of her pale hair from her eyes. "You... and me... the oasis... it was bigger and there were more plants than we have yet nurtured."

"And?" She inquired, eyes searching his. She swallowed. He gazed at her for several beats in silence, then his big hand slid over her abdomen and came to rest just below her stomach, his touch gentle, almost reverent.

"And..." He murmured in the intimate volume of lovers, "Someone not yet born." He smiled softly at her, gaze tender and open. She drew in a trembling breath, eyes locked with his.

"Was it real?" She whispered, feeling the vulnerability in her expression. Her lover's hand moved up to caress her cheek. He leaned in very close and hesitated a finger's width from her mouth.

"It can be..." He breathed softly, "If that is the future you wish for." She shivered at his closeness and whispered:

"I've... never really had a future before... not one I was free to choose, anyway."

"Did you like what you saw through the water of life?" He asked quietly, "Do you want that life?" She caressed his face and looked earnestly into those eyes, feeling herself melt for him.

"It's more than I ever dreamed I'd have..." She breathed, "Of course I want it. I want you." She kissed him eagerly, smiling against his mouth as he bound his thick arms around her and squeezed her tightly to him.

"We will build that life, beloved... together."

They kissed and caressed each other the Great Mother knew how long after that, cherishing the quiet, undisturbed intimacy.

"We can't go it alone with a child, though..." She said after a time, then allowed teasing into her voice. "Unless you're also a midwife?" He laughed gently, stroking her.

"No, love. I expect we will need others' help. But, since you know Muad'dib and our new reverend mother, I believe it will be easier to find friends among my people than we may have thought. Perhaps we might even encourage a few others to move out to the Oasis. It was never intended to stay a one-man outpost, after all."

"Who should we talk to about it?" She asked.

"I have some notions about that." He said offhandedly, "But it can wait. No sense spoiling the mood with worries and uncertainty." She chuckled softly as he rolled on top of her and kissed her soundly. She tangled her fingers in his short hair and moaned softly at the delicious pressure of his body upon hers and the taste of his lips. Before long she was wrestling with his stillsuit straps in her fingertips, cursing in her impatience to have him bared for her again. He laughed gently and helped expedite the process before deftly stripping her down as well.

It was different this time. Without the effect of the water of life she couldn't feel his desire from inside him. All she had was her own aching urgency and her own body's craving to embrace his. He loomed over her, up on his knees as he gazed down at her where she lay on her back, legs already half spread for him. She watched his eyes comb over her and thought she recognized his hunger, but also uncertainty...

"Bado?" She called softly. He met her gaze.

"Do you want me, beloved?" His deep voice asked quietly.

So, he was feeling it too... the absence of that sweet overlap of their minds and feelings and sensations felt like losing part of her senses, like being blind and deaf on one side. She was sure this plea for reassurance and certainty came from that lack. His question gave to her what she thrust at him with her answer, smiling.

"More than anything." She whispered, looking deeply in those blue-within-blue eyes. A shiver went through him, visible even from the outside. He descended on her and kissed her feverishly up and down her throat. Her arms wrapped about him eagerly and she caressed every angle of him she could reach with evident enjoyment. Both of them wer warming to the exchange, hearts pounding, breath growing short until they were gasping at each other. Frey laughed breathlessly and brought her hands up to cradle his face along that bearded jawline of his.

Yes, it was different, not knowing his every thought and sensation. Yes the water of life had lent a blazing clarity of purpose and desire and direction. But this... binding herself to him even without that sixth sense of him suddenly seemed even more special to her. Here they were, once strangers from different worlds altogether; once jailer and prisoner, at least to her early impression. Now... now she could not bear to imagine life without him and she told him so with her very next breath.

"I was hardly alive at all before you, little one." He replied in kind with half-voiced exhalations sliding out between his lips and into her ear. Frey wrapped her arms and legs about her lover's broad body and drew him close until they were crushed against one another, his iron-hard sex pressed against her softness, already growing very warm and wet in anticipation for him. She would have taken him right then, but he anxiously watched her eyes and caressed her flower with curious fingertips between her thighs, checking her arousal first. Though she could not hear his thoughts now, she smiled as she understood. He wanted to be sure, first. She supposed that was for the best, given the difference in their sizes.

Though they'd only coupled once before, she felt certain that the influence of the Sietch orgy combined with the water of life had bestowed some kind of shortcut to the degree of excitement it would take for her body to be able to accommodate his entire endowment. She bit her lip and hummed happily as he bent his neck and lavished her nipples with his lips and tongue. His thick middle finger slipped between her folds and into her center and she gasped softly at that sweet intrusion. He worked her with his hands and mouth tirelessly until she was moaning and mewling with unslaked thirst. Her desert man withdrew from her and sat up, gazing down with evident satisfaction at the effect he'd had on her. She writhed and whimpered and pouted up at him, hips undulating smoothly once in instinctual answer to the fire he'd started.

"Don't be cruel," She whispered, "Just because you have me at your mercy." He chuckled breathlessly and leaned over her, bathing her front in the warmth of contact with his heated skin.

"Forgive me, love." He murmured huskily. "I've been the least of men for so long... you can't blame me for feeling a little inclined to gloat now that I am the wealthiest Fremen ever to walk the desert."

"Do I not carry my own wealth?" She teased fingering one of the braids of her hair that held several gold rings woven into it.

"You are my wealth for as long as you choose to be mine."

"That will be always." She purred in answer. He smiled broadly and kissed her for that, his manhood barely brushing against her slick sex between her thighs as he leaned in so close. Frey whimpered wordlessly again and her desert man hummed approvingly of her eagerness as he carefully began to slide his length inside her, little by little.

"Ahhh..." Frey sighed aloud.

"Mmmm" Her lover answered, echoing her pleasure as her wet warmth enveloped him.

He went slowly, thrusting gently into her and watching her carefully for any sign of discomfort as he proceeded to fuck her with patient, deliberate motions. She surrendered to his every move, letting herself grow lost and pliable in her enjoyment of it; allowing her arousal to flair wantonly however it wanted until she was close enough to whine and yelp with every plunge of his sex into hers. She forced open her eyes and looked pleadingly at him. Her lover smiled proudly and stared her down with smoldering blue eyes.

"Let go, Frey... I want to watch you come undone." He commanded in a husky rumble of his deep voice. She took his order to heart and let her eyelids close as her eyes rolled back and she writhed against him, hands involuntarily seizing his sides and gripping him tightly, legs and arms and hands shaking as she ravenously chased down her climax while he fucked her faster and harder. Her voice rang out, begging and pleading and exalting in every sensation until she arched uncontrollably against him, her back curling until her shoulders lifted off the bedroll and the top of her head pressed down against the bedding, her mouth stretched open as she spasmed and bucked in a trembling, unsteady rhythm, her flower contracting so tightly it drew a throaty groan from her man as he pressed her in time with her motions.

When at last she finally let out the breath trapped behind her tightened throat, she turned her eyes hungrily on him and pulled him into an aggressive kiss with one hand clenched in his hair.

"Now you-" She rasped, breathing through her teeth as she prompted him and he eagerly complied, something primal and wild in his movements as he let go and moved according to his own drives, thrusting into her over and over as his mouth hung open, teeth half-biting his own groans and growls. Her voice huffed out of her with every beat of his rhythm as he accelerated, finally seizing her at her waist with his right hand while his left still propped him upright. He cried out aloud in anticipation and his movements became frantic. She grinned as she watched him unravel, brows turned upward, eyes closed, mouth open. His thighs slapped against hers twice more before the contractions of his own orgasm took him and he toppled forward and buried his face in the hollow of her neck, thrusting deep and hard and deliriously as his ejaculation gushed out into her, a very slight sense of warmth and pressure added on top of the feeling of his throbbing erection buried to the hilt in her body.

"My Fremen man gives me much water." She purred in his ear, stealing his earlier words as he groaned softly, finally coming out of his daze as his body stopped twitching within hers. "I must have pleased him greatly." He found her gaze and stared feverishly right into her.

"I would give you every drop of my water, my goddess." He breathed, still trembling, "And lay myself out dead and dry as an offering to you and your perfection."

"I prefer my worshipper _alive_." She chided, kissing him. He huffed an exhausted laugh and kissed her back, one of his hands fumbling in their clothing scattered to the side of the bedroll. He left himself within her, hips still pressed firmly against hers as if reluctant to break the physical tie between their bodies. She wasn't complaining, even as she wondered what his wandering hand was about.

Finally he released her mouth and held up a single water ring, not the smallest denomination, but close to it. It was the one that had been tied into his collar ever since she'd stumbled ito his cavern months ago.

"Perhaps this will do for now, then? You did say offworlders require only one ring to marry... did you not?" He murmured, his voice warm and glowing with adoration. She smiled up at him and offered her left hand, fingers splayed.

"So, Shai Hulud did manage to deliver you a wife, fallen from the sky right into your lap as you sat out there in his desert?"

"There are certainly reasons we worship and revere him." He answered, grinning at her as he slipped the gold band onto her outstretched ring finger.

"It fits quite well." She noted, twisting it a little with her thumb. "But you forgot one part of this custom."

"Oh, and what is that?"

"I must give you one also." She explained in a smooth voice, reaching up and deftly unraveling one of the braids enough to free a ring of appropriate size for his thick, weathered fingers. "After all, if you want me to be your wife then you must be my husband. That is the nature of such arrangements, is it not?"

"Ah, right. Of course." He said in answer, offering up his own hand with an affectionate smile. She furrowed her brow as she fitted the ring down onto his own ring finger and he quirked an eyebrow at her expression.

"What is it?" He murmured.

"I was just thinking," She said quietly, 'That was such a relatively indirect proposal, but thanks to last night I know as well as you do how much we both want this. Feeling you from inside like that... it's quite a privilege."

"Just so, love." He purred. "And now you see why I wished so heartily to share it with you."

She nodded, smiling as she clasped his ringed hand with her own and admired the gold bands that represented their bond.

"Do you know why we exchange rings for our marriages?" She said, gazing into his otherworldly eyes.

"Why?"

"It is because the ring has no beginning and no end. It represents an eternal bond... an unending promise. The world will turn and revolve around the sun and the stars will spin around the heart of the galaxy... and I will continue to love you without end, my one and only." She squeezed his hand and he returned the pressure before pulling her into an embrace and another kiss, heartfelt and deliberate.

"And I you, beloved." He whispered, and she felt his very soul in those words, so heartfelt and earnest did they ring in her ears.

 

 

 


	15. Epilogue

Frey clambered up out of the cavern nestled among the rocks, momentarily shading her eyes against the oblique sunlight streaming at her from a fierce Arakian sunset on the horizon. It was a little early to be out, but having come from a gentler, light loving world, she could not help but revel in the wash of color and light burning like a wildfire on the crests of those distant, westward dunes. She gazed out over that endless sea of sand at the last light of the brutal Arakian day and smiled. Blazing hues of red, orange, yellow, and pink burned the westward edges of everything in sight, casting long east-facing shadows in violet. Before long all would shift dramatically to the chill, deep blues of the desert night, frosted by the silvery moonlight.

In this world of extremes the burning day and frozen night bore no mercy for any of Arakis' living creatures. Yet, life thrived here, only the stronger for all the brutality of the climate.

Frey felt the familiar presence of her desert man draw close behind her even before his thick arm wound around her and tugged her into a gentle sidelong embrace as he joined her in looking out over the dunes.

"Enjoying the colors?" He murmured. She nodded.

"There are many things I did not know I would come to love here on Arakis." Her voice rang quietly, a volume only for him.

Nearby she could hear voices of other Fremen stirring in their well-hidden dens. Gaius' familiar tones drifted to them on the still-hot evening breeze among them. Others had indeed come to join them out here at the oasis, more quickly than she would have expected. Apparently Muad'dib was even more adamant than Liet that the horticultural efforts he'd begun should continue.

"You warmed up to the desert more quickly than you came to accept me, though." He teased gently, smirking at her. She returned the smirk.

"Well, a husband is the absolute last thing I expected this world would provide me."

His hand loosened a touch and shifted down where it came to rest on her lower abdomen.

"And what about this?" He added in a perfectly gentle, intimate tone as he pressed his fingers over the place beneath which their unborn child grew within her.

"Well..." She admitted. "Perhaps you were only the second least expected thing..."


End file.
